Database protection using block-level mapping

ABSTRACT

A system according to certain aspects may include a client computing device including: a database application configured to output a database file in a primary storage device(s), the database application outputting the database file as a series of application-level blocks; and a data agent configured to divide the database file into a plurality of first blocks having a first granularity larger than a second granularity of the application-level blocks such that each of the first blocks spans a plurality of the application-level blocks. The system may include a secondary storage controller computer(s) configured to: in response to instructions to create a secondary copy of the database file: copy the plurality of first blocks to a secondary storage device(s) to create a secondary copy of the database file; and create a table that provides a mapping between the copied plurality of first blocks and corresponding locations on the secondary storage device(s).

RELATED APPLICATIONS

Any and all applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claimis identified in the Application Data Sheet, or any correction thereto,are hereby incorporated by reference into this application under 37 CFR1.57.

BACKGROUND

Businesses worldwide recognize the commercial value of their data andseek reliable, cost-effective ways to protect the information stored ontheir computer networks while minimizing impact on productivity.Protecting information is often part of a routine process that isperformed within an organization. A company might back up criticalcomputing systems such as databases, file servers, web servers, and soon as part of a daily, weekly, or monthly maintenance schedule. Thecompany may similarly protect computing systems used by each of itsemployees, such as those used by an accounting department, marketingdepartment, engineering department, and so forth.

Given the rapidly expanding volume of data under management, companiesalso continue to seek innovative techniques for managing data growth, inaddition to protecting data. For instance, companies often implementmigration techniques for moving data to lower cost storage over time anddata reduction techniques for reducing redundant data, pruning lowerpriority data, etc. Enterprises also increasingly view their stored dataas a valuable asset. Along these lines, customers are looking forsolutions that not only protect and manage, but also leverage theirdata. For instance, solutions providing data analysis capabilities,information management, improved data presentation and access features,and the like, are in increasing demand.

SUMMARY

According to certain aspects, a database file is backed up in ablock-level fashion, which in some embodiments is an image-level backup.Some systems access a database object (e.g., a table) in a backed updatabase file by first restoring the entire backup file, which canconsume a large amount of time and computing resources. In order toaddress these and other challenges, an information management systemaccording to certain aspects implements database backup usingblock-level mapping of database objects. For example, the informationmanagement system may restore a particular database object from a backupdatabase file that is stored as multiple blocks or other granular units.A block can include a large number of database blocks. At the timebackup, the database data can be divided into one or more blocks andcopied to secondary storage on a block-by-block basis. This can allowthe information management system to restore only the block(s) thatinclude the data for the requested database object, instead of restoringthe entire backup database file. Then, the information management systemcan extract the desired data from the restored block(s). By usingblock-level mapping and storage techniques described herein, the systemcan restore a database object in a backed up database file withoutrestoring the entire backup database file, thereby speeding up restoreoperations and reducing consumption of storage and processing resources.

Database application data may need to be restored to another databaseapplication that is different than the source database that originallygenerated the data. For example, data generated by an Oracle databasemay need to be restored to an SQL Server. Restoring a database file to adifferent database application may be performed for various reasons,such as where there are a limited number of available licenses for thesource database application, for reporting reasons such as where auniform reporting format is desired, quality assurance (QA) purposes,migration purposes (e.g., migration to a different database application,cloud, etc.), etc. However, in many cases, only a portion of a databasefile may need to be restored. For example, only a table or a few tablesmay need to be restored to generate a report. Accordingly, theinformation management system may implement database restore at a moregranular level. For example, the information management system canextract a database object from a backup database file and convert thedatabase object to the format of a database application that isdifferent than the source database application used to generate thedatabase object.

In some cases, database data may be archived to secondary storage tomake more storage space available in primary storage. Such archiveddatabase data can be pruned from primary storage. When the user tries toaccess an object archived database data (e.g., a table or record), somesystems may restore the entire archived file containing the desired datain order to restore only the desired data. However, the archiveddatabase data the user is trying to access is often only a portion ofthe archived file. Accordingly, similar to backup database files, aninformation management system according to certain aspects archives andrestores database objects using blocks.

In certain embodiments, the information management system allows accessto archived database data, without using the Network File System (NFS)protocol. The system can allocate disk storage for archive files andperform volume-level backup of the whole volume (e.g., obtain a snapshotof the volume). The volume-level backup files can be stored in secondarystorage in relatively large blocks. The system can then allow thevolume-level backup files to be mounted locally to the databaseapplication as pseudo volumes. When the database application accessesthe data in a volume-level backup file, the system can restore theblock(s) that include the accessed data to the database archive server.

According to some embodiments, a data storage system for protectingdatabase files is provided. The system may include a client computingdevice. The client computing device can include at least one hardwareprocessor. The client computing device can also include a databaseapplication executing on the processor and configured to output adatabase file for storage in one or more primary storage devices in aprimary storage subsystem, the database file including a plurality ofdatabase objects, the database application outputting the database fileas a series of application-level blocks. The client computing device mayalso include a data agent executing on the processor and configured todivide the database file into a plurality of first blocks having a firstgranularity larger than a second granularity of the application-levelblocks such that each of the first blocks spans a plurality of theapplication-level blocks. The system can also include one or moresecondary storage controller computers comprising computer hardwareconfigured to: in response to instructions to create a secondary copy ofthe database file: copy the plurality of first blocks to one or moresecondary storage devices in a secondary storage subsystem to create asecondary copy of the database file; and create a table that provides amapping between the copied plurality of first blocks and correspondinglocations on the one or more secondary storage devices.

According to other embodiments, a method of protecting database files isprovided. The method can include, with a data agent executing on atleast one processor of a client computing device, the client computingdevice comprising a database application executing on the processor andconfigured to output a database file for storage in one or more primarystorage devices in a primary storage subsystem, the database fileincluding a plurality of database objects, the database applicationoutputting the database file as a series of application-level blocks:dividing the database file into a plurality of first blocks having afirst granularity larger than a second granularity of theapplication-level blocks such that each of the first blocks spans aplurality of the application-level blocks. The method can also include,with one or more secondary storage controller computers comprisingcomputer hardware: in response to instructions to create a secondarycopy of the database file: copying the plurality of first blocks to oneor more secondary storage devices in a secondary storage subsystem tocreate a secondary copy of the database file; and creating a table thatprovides a mapping between the copied plurality of first blocks andcorresponding locations on the one or more secondary storage devices.

According to certain embodiments, a data storage system for protectingstructured data is provided. The system may include a computing devicecomprising computer hardware and having a data agent executing thereon.The computing device can be configured to divide a structured data fileresiding on one or more storage devices in a first storage subsysteminto a plurality of first blocks, wherein the structured data fileincludes data generated by a first application executing on one or morecomputing devices and the database file includes one or more dataobjects. The computing device can also be configured to create a tablethat provides a mapping between the plurality of first blocks andcorresponding offsets of the database file. The system may also includeone or more storage controller computers comprising hardware configuredto, in response to instructions to create a copy of the structured filefrom the one or more storage devices in the first storage subsystem,copy the plurality of first blocks to one or more storage devices in asecond storage subsystem to create the copy of the structured file.

According to some embodiments, a system for backing up and restoringdatabase data is provided. The system may include a computing devicecomprising computer hardware, the computing device having a data agentexecuting thereon. The computing device may be configured to intercept arequest from a database application executing on the computing device toread a portion of a database file, where a secondary copy of thedatabase file resides on one or more secondary storage devices in asecondary storage subsystem and is organized on the one or moresecondary storage devices as a plurality of first blocks, wherein theportion corresponds to a subset of one or more database objects of aplurality of database objects represented by the database file, whereinthe request includes one or more database file offsets corresponding tothe requested portion. The computing device may also be configured tomap the one or more database file offsets to a subset of the firstblocks that correspond to the one or more requested database objectsbased on the one or more database file offsets included in the request.The computing device can be further configured to issue a request forthe subset of the first blocks. The system may also include one or moresecondary storage controller computers comprising hardware configuredto: in response to the request for the subset of the first blocks:access a table that maps the plurality of first blocks to storagelocations on the one or more secondary storage devices; using the table,locate the subset of the first blocks on the one or more secondarystorage devices and retrieve the subset of the first blocks from the oneor more secondary storage devices; and forward the retrieved firstblocks for storage in one or more primary storage devices associatedwith the computing device.

According to other embodiments, a method of backing up and restoringdatabase data is provided. The method can include, using a computingdevice comprising computer hardware, the computing device having a dataagent executing thereon: intercepting a request from a databaseapplication executing on the computing device to read a portion of adatabase file, where a secondary copy of the database file resides onone or more secondary storage devices in a secondary storage subsystemand is organized on the one or more secondary storage devices as aplurality of first blocks, wherein the portion corresponds to a subsetof one or more database objects of a plurality of database objectsrepresented by the database file, wherein the request includes one ormore database file offsets corresponding to the requested portion;mapping the one or more database file offsets to a subset of the firstblocks that correspond to the one or more requested database objectsbased on the one or more database file offsets included in the request;and issuing a request for the subset of the first blocks. The method canalso include, using one or more secondary storage controller computerscomprising hardware: in response to the request for the subset of thefirst blocks: accessing a table that maps the plurality of first blocksto storage locations on the one or more secondary storage devices; usingthe table, locating the subset of the first blocks on the one or moresecondary storage devices and retrieve the subset of the first blocksfrom the one or more secondary storage devices; and forwarding theretrieved first blocks for storage in one or more primary storagedevices associated with the computing device.

According to certain embodiments, a system for converting database datafrom one database application format to another database applicationformat is provided. The system can include a first computing devicecomprising computer hardware. The first computing device may beconfigured to, in response to a request to access at least one firstdatabase object of a plurality of database objects represented by adatabase file generated by a first database application, the databasefile including a plurality of data blocks, the first databaseapplication residing on a computing device within a primary storagesubsystem, identify a subset of the plurality of data blocks whichcorrespond to the first database object. The first computing device maybe further configured to issue a request to retrieve the subset of datablocks from one or more secondary storage devices which reside in asecondary storage subsystem and which store a secondary copy of thedatabase file, the secondary copy of the database file includingsecondary copies of the plurality of data blocks. The system may includea second computing device comprising computer hardware. The system mayalso include one or more secondary storage controller computerscomprising computer hardware. The one or more secondary storagecontroller computers may be configured to receive the request toretrieve the subset of data blocks. The one or more secondary storagecontroller computers can be further configured to access a stored tablethat provides a mapping between the secondary copies of the plurality ofdata blocks and corresponding locations of the secondary copies of theplurality of data blocks in the one or more secondary storage devices.The one or more secondary storage controller computers can additionallybe configured to retrieve the subset of data blocks from the one or moresecondary storage devices. The one or more secondary storage controllercomputers may also be configured to forward the retrieved subset of datablocks to the second computing device. The second computing device canbe configured to receive each of the requested data blocks, the receiveddata blocks retrieved from the one or more secondary storage devices.The second computing device may also be configured to convert thereceived data blocks to a format usable by a second database applicationdifferent than the first database application. The second computingdevice may be further configured to forward the converted data blocksfor use by an instance of the second database application.

According to some embodiments, a method of converting database data fromone database application format to another database application formatis provided. The method may include, using a first computing devicecomprising computer hardware: in response to a request to access atleast one first database object of a plurality of database objectsrepresented by a database file generated by a first databaseapplication, the database file including a plurality of data blocks, thefirst database application residing on a computing device within aprimary storage subsystem, identifying a subset of the plurality of datablocks which correspond to the first database object; and issuing arequest to retrieve the subset of data blocks from one or more secondarystorage devices which reside in a secondary storage subsystem and whichstore a secondary copy of the database file, the secondary copy of thedatabase file including secondary copies of the plurality of datablocks. The method can also include, using one or more secondary storagecontroller computers comprising computer hardware: receiving the requestto retrieve the subset of data blocks; accessing a stored table thatprovides a mapping between the secondary copies of the plurality of datablocks and corresponding locations of the secondary copies of theplurality of data blocks in the one or more secondary storage devices;retrieving the subset of data blocks from the one or more secondarystorage devices; and forwarding the retrieved subset of data blocks to asecond computing device comprising computer hardware. The method canfurther include, using the second computing device: receiving each ofthe requested data blocks, the received data blocks retrieved from theone or more secondary storage devices; converting the received datablocks to a format usable by a second database application differentthan the first database application; and forwarding the converted datablocks for use by an instance of the second database application.

According to other embodiments, a system for converting structured datafrom one software application format to another software applicationformat is provided. The system can include a first computing devicecomprising computer hardware. The first computing device may beconfigured to, in response to a request to access at least one firstobject of a plurality of objects represented by a structured filegenerated by a first software application, the structured file includinga plurality of data blocks, the first software application residing on acomputing device within a first storage subsystem, identify a subset ofthe plurality of data blocks which correspond to the first object. Thefirst computing device may be further configured to issue a request toretrieve the subset of data blocks from one or more storage deviceswhich reside in a second storage subsystem and which store a secondarycopy of the structured file, the secondary copy of the structured fileincluding secondary copies of the plurality of data blocks. The systemmay also include a second computing device comprising computer hardware.The system may further include one or more secondary storage controllercomputers comprising computer hardware. The one or more secondarystorage controller computers can be configured to receive the request toretrieve the subset of data blocks. The one or more secondary storagecontroller computers may also be configured to access a stored tablethat provides a mapping between the secondary copies of the plurality ofdata blocks and corresponding locations of the secondary copies of theplurality of data blocks in the one or more storage devices. The one ormore secondary storage controller computers can be further configured toretrieve the subset of data blocks from the one or more storage devices.The one or more secondary storage controller computers may additionallybe configured to forward the retrieved subset of data blocks to thesecond computing device. The second computing device can be configuredto receive each of the requested data blocks, the received data blocksretrieved from the one or more storage devices. The second computingdevice may be configured to convert the received data blocks to a formatusable by a second software application different than the firstsoftware application. The second computing device can be furtherconfigured to forward the converted data blocks for use by an instanceof the second software application.

According to certain embodiments, an information management system forarchiving and restoring database data is provided. The system caninclude a data agent comprising computer hardware. The data agent may beconfigured to process a database file residing on one or more firststorage devices to identify a subset of data in the database file forarchiving, the database file generated by a database applicationexecuting on a client computing device comprising computer hardware. Thedata agent may also be configured to extract the subset of the data fromthe database file and store the subset of the data in an archive file onthe one or more first storage devices, the archive file contained withina first volume. The data agent may be further configured to delete thesubset of the data from the database file. The data agent canadditionally be configured to create a snapshot of the first volume, thesnapshot of the first volume being stored on the one or more firststorage devices. The data agent can be further configured to divide thesnapshot of the first volume into a plurality of blocks having a commonsize. The system may also include at least one secondary storagecontroller computer comprising hardware and residing in a secondarystorage subsystem, the secondary storage controller computer configuredto, as part of a secondary copy operation in which the snapshot of thefirst volume is copied to one or more secondary storage devices in thesecondary storage subsystem: receive the plurality of blocks over anetwork connection; copy the plurality of blocks to the one or moresecondary storage devices to create a secondary copy of the firstvolume; and create a table that provides a mapping between the copiedplurality of blocks and corresponding locations in the one or moresecondary storage devices.

According to some embodiments, an information management system forarchiving and restoring database data is provided. The system mayinclude a data agent comprising computer hardware. The data agent may beconfigured to process a database file residing on one or more primarystorage devices in a primary storage subsystem to identify a subset ofdata in the database file for archiving, the database file generated bya database application executing on a client computing device comprisingcomputer hardware. The data agent can also be configured to extract thesubset of the data from the database file and store the subset of thedata in an archive file on one or more of the primary storage devices asa plurality of blocks having a common size. The data agent may befurther configured to delete the subset of the data from the databasefile. The system can also include at least one secondary storagecontroller computer comprising hardware and residing in a secondarystorage subsystem, the secondary storage controller computer configuredto, as part of a secondary copy operation in which the archive file iscopied to one or more secondary storage devices in the secondary storagesubsystem: receive the plurality of blocks over a network connection;copy the plurality of blocks to the one or more secondary storagedevices to create a secondary copy of the archive file; and create atable that provides a mapping between the copied plurality of blocks andcorresponding locations in the one or more secondary storage devices,wherein the archive file is deleted from the primary storage devicessubsequent to the creation of the secondary copy of the archive file.

According to other embodiments, a method of archiving and restoringdatabase data is provided. The method may include, using a data agentcomprising computer hardware: processing a database file residing on oneor more primary storage devices in a primary storage subsystem toidentify a subset of the data in the database file for archiving, thedatabase file generated by a database application executing on a clientcomputing device comprising computer hardware; extracting the subset ofthe data from the database file and storing the subset of the data in anarchive file on one or more of the primary storage devices as aplurality of blocks having a common size; and deleting the subset of thedata from the database file. The method may also include, using at leastone secondary storage controller computer comprising hardware andresiding in a secondary storage subsystem, as part of a secondary copyoperation in which the archive file is copied to one or more secondarystorage devices in the secondary storage subsystem: receiving theplurality of blocks over a network connection; copying the plurality ofblocks to the one or more secondary storage devices to create asecondary copy of the archive file; and creating a table that provides amapping between the copied plurality of blocks and correspondinglocations in the one or more secondary storage devices, wherein thearchive file is deleted from the primary storage devices subsequent tothe creation of the secondary copy of the archive file.

For purposes of summarizing the disclosure, certain aspects, advantagesand novel features of the inventions have been described herein. It isto be understood that not necessarily all such advantages may beachieved in accordance with any particular embodiment of the invention.Thus, the invention may be embodied or carried out in a manner thatachieves or optimizes one advantage or group of advantages as taughtherein without necessarily achieving other advantages as may be taughtor suggested herein.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary informationmanagement system.

FIG. 1B is a detailed view of a primary storage device, a secondarystorage device, and some examples of primary data and secondary copydata.

FIG. 1C is a block diagram of an exemplary information management systemincluding a storage manager, one or more data agents, and one or moremedia agents.

FIG. 1D is a block diagram illustrating a scalable informationmanagement system.

FIG. 1E illustrates certain secondary copy operations according to anexemplary storage policy.

FIGS. 1F-1H are block diagrams illustrating suitable data structuresthat may be employed by the information management system.

FIGS. 2A-2B are a data flow diagrams illustrative of the interactionbetween the various components of an exemplary information managementsystem configured to implement database backup using block-levelmapping, according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 2C is a block diagram illustrative of database application data,block-level mapping, and associated data structures, according tocertain embodiments.

FIG. 2D shows an example of a block location table and a correspondingsecondary storage device.

FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of the exemplary information management systemconfigured to convert database objects to a database application formatthat is different than that of the source database application used togenerate the objects, according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine fordatabase backup using block-level mapping.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrative of another embodiment of a routinefor database restore using block-level mapping.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine forconversion of a database object to a different database applicationformat.

FIGS. 7, 7A, and 7B are data flow diagrams illustrative of theinteraction between the various components of the exemplary informationmanagement system configured to implement object-level restore ofdatabase data, according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine forrestoring a database object.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are disclosed for protecting and restoring databasedata, including systems and methods for protecting database data at theblock level, and restoring database data at the object-level. Examplesof such systems and methods are described in further detail herein, inreference to FIGS. 2-6. Components and functionality for implementingany of the above features may be configured and/or incorporated intoinformation management systems such as those described herein in FIGS.1A-1H.

Certain techniques disclosed herein are described for the purposes ofillustration in the context of working with relational database files,including techniques for backing up database files in a block-levelfashion, restoring database file data (e.g., tables, records, or otherobjects) on an object-level basis, converting database data from onedatabase format to another database format, etc. However, it should beappreciated that the techniques described herein are applicable to othertypes of data. For instance, the techniques described herein as beingapplicable to database files are equally applicable to other types ofstructured data, including spreadsheet files.

Information Management System Overview

With the increasing importance of protecting and leveraging data,organizations simply cannot afford to take the risk of losing criticaldata. Moreover, runaway data growth and other modern realities makeprotecting and managing data an increasingly difficult task. There istherefore a need for efficient, powerful, and user-friendly solutionsfor protecting and managing data.

Depending on the size of the organization, there are typically many dataproduction sources which are under the purview of tens, hundreds, oreven thousands of employees or other individuals. In the past,individual employees were sometimes responsible for managing andprotecting their data. A patchwork of hardware and software pointsolutions has been applied in other cases. These solutions were oftenprovided by different vendors and had limited or no interoperability.

Certain embodiments described herein provide systems and methods capableof addressing these and other shortcomings of prior approaches byimplementing unified, organization-wide information management. FIG. 1Ashows one such information management system 100, which generallyincludes combinations of hardware and software configured to protect andmanage data and metadata, which is generated and used by the variouscomputing devices in information management system 100. The organizationthat employs the information management system 100 may be a corporationor other business entity, non-profit organization, educationalinstitution, household, governmental agency, or the like.

Generally, the systems and associated components described herein may becompatible with and/or provide some or all of the functionality of thesystems and corresponding components described in one or more of thefollowing U.S. patents and patent application publications assigned toCommVault Systems, Inc., each of which is hereby incorporated in itsentirety by reference herein:

-   -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, entitled “Modular Backup and Retrieval        System Used in Conjunction With a Storage Area Network”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,107,298, entitled “System And Method For        Archiving Objects In An Information Store”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, entitled “System and Method for        Dynamically Performing Storage Operations in a Computer        Network”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,315,923, entitled “System And Method For        Combining Data Streams In Pipelined Storage Operations In A        Storage Network”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, entitled “Hierarchical Systems and        Methods for Providing a Unified View of Storage Information”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,395,282, entitled “Hierarchical Backup and        Retrieval System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, entitled “System and Methods for        Performing a Snapshot and for Restoring Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262, entitled “System and Methods for        Monitoring Application Data in a Data Replication System”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,747,579, entitled “Metabase for Facilitating        Data Classification”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,156,086, entitled “Systems And Methods For        Stored Data Verification”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, entitled “Method and System for Offline        Indexing of Content and Classifying Stored Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,229,954, entitled “Managing Copies Of Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled “System And Method For        Performing Auxiliary Storage Operations”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,681, entitled “Data Object Store and Server        for a Cloud Storage Environment, Including Data Deduplication        and Data Management Across Multiple Cloud Storage Sites”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,307,177, entitled “Systems And Methods For        Management Of Virtualization Data”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, entitled “Content-Aligned, Block-Based        Deduplication”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,578,120, entitled “Block-Level Single        Instancing”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2006/0224846, entitled “System and Method to        Support Single Instance Storage Operations”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0319534, entitled “Application-Aware and        Remote Single Instance Data Management”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150818, entitled “Client-Side        Repository in a Networked Deduplicated Storage System”; and    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, entitled “Distributed        Deduplicated Storage System”.

The information management system 100 can include a variety of differentcomputing devices. For instance, as will be described in greater detailherein, the information management system 100 can include one or moreclient computing devices 102 and secondary storage computing devices106.

Computing devices can include, without limitation, one or more:workstations, personal computers, desktop computers, or other types ofgenerally fixed computing systems such as mainframe computers andminicomputers. Other computing devices can include mobile or portablecomputing devices, such as one or more laptops, tablet computers,personal data assistants, mobile phones (such as smartphones), and othermobile or portable computing devices such as embedded computers, set topboxes, vehicle-mounted devices, wearable computers, etc. Computingdevices can include servers, such as mail servers, file servers,database servers, and web servers.

In some cases, a computing device includes virtualized and/or cloudcomputing resources. For instance, one or more virtual machines may beprovided to the organization by a third-party cloud service vendor. Or,in some embodiments, computing devices can include one or more virtualmachine(s) running on a physical host computing device (or “hostmachine”) operated by the organization. As one example, the organizationmay use one virtual machine as a database server and another virtualmachine as a mail server, both virtual machines operating on the samehost machine.

A virtual machine includes an operating system and associated virtualresources, and is hosted simultaneously with another operating system ona physical host computer (or host machine). A hypervisor (typicallysoftware, and also known in the art as a virtual machine monitor or avirtual machine manager or “VMM”) sits between the virtual machine andthe hardware of the physical host machine. One example of hypervisor asvirtualization software is ESX Server, by VMware, Inc. of Palo Alto,Calif.; other examples include Microsoft Virtual Server and MicrosoftWindows Server Hyper-V, both by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.,and Sun xVM by Oracle America Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. In someembodiments, the hypervisor may be firmware or hardware or a combinationof software and/or firmware and/or hardware.

The hypervisor provides to each virtual operating system virtualresources, such as a virtual processor, virtual memory, a virtualnetwork device, and a virtual disk. Each virtual machine has one or morevirtual disks. The hypervisor typically stores the data of virtual disksin files on the file system of the physical host machine, called virtualmachine disk files (in the case of VMware virtual servers) or virtualhard disk image files (in the case of Microsoft virtual servers). Forexample, VMware's ESX Server provides the Virtual Machine File System(VMFS) for the storage of virtual machine disk files. A virtual machinereads data from and writes data to its virtual disk much the same waythat an actual physical machine reads data from and writes data to anactual disk.

Examples of techniques for implementing information managementtechniques in a cloud computing environment are described in U.S. Pat.No. 8,285,681, which is incorporated by reference herein. Examples oftechniques for implementing information management techniques in avirtualized computing environment are described in U.S. Pat. No.8,307,177, also incorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 100 can also include a variety ofstorage devices, including primary storage devices 104 and secondarystorage devices 108, for example. Storage devices can generally be ofany suitable type including, without limitation, disk drives, hard-diskarrays, semiconductor memory (e.g., solid state storage devices),network attached storage (NAS) devices, tape libraries or othermagnetic, non-tape storage devices, optical media storage devices,DNA/RNA-based memory technology, combinations of the same, and the like.In some embodiments, storage devices can form part of a distributed filesystem. In some cases, storage devices are provided in a cloud (e.g., aprivate cloud or one operated by a third-party vendor). A storage devicein some cases comprises a disk array or portion thereof.

The illustrated information management system 100 includes one or moreclient computing device 102 having at least one application 110executing thereon, and one or more primary storage devices 104 storingprimary data 112. The client computing device(s) 102 and the primarystorage devices 104 may generally be referred to in some cases as aprimary storage subsystem 117. A computing device in an informationmanagement system 100 that has a data agent 142 installed and operatingon it is generally referred to as a client computing device 102 (or, inthe context of a component of the information management system 100simply as a “client”).

Depending on the context, the term “information management system” canrefer to generally all of the illustrated hardware and softwarecomponents. Or, in other instances, the term may refer to only a subsetof the illustrated components.

For instance, in some cases, the information management system 100generally refers to a combination of specialized components used toprotect, move, manage, manipulate, analyze, and/or process data andmetadata generated by the client computing devices 102. However, theinformation management system 100 in some cases does not include theunderlying components that generate and/or store the primary data 112,such as the client computing devices 102 themselves, the applications110 and operating system operating on the client computing devices 102,and the primary storage devices 104. As an example, “informationmanagement system” may sometimes refer to one or more of the followingcomponents and corresponding data structures: storage managers, dataagents, and media agents. These components will be described in furtherdetail below.

Client Computing Devices

There are typically a variety of sources in an organization that producedata to be protected and managed. As just one illustrative example, in acorporate environment such data sources can be employee workstations andcompany servers such as a mail server, a web server, a database server,a transaction server, or the like. In the information management system100, the data generation sources include the one or more clientcomputing devices 102.

The client computing devices 102 may include any of the types ofcomputing devices described above, without limitation, and in some casesthe client computing devices 102 are associated with one or more usersand/or corresponding user accounts, of employees or other individuals.

The information management system 100 generally addresses and handlesthe data management and protection needs for the data generated by theclient computing devices 102. However, the use of this term does notimply that the client computing devices 102 cannot be “servers” in otherrespects. For instance, a particular client computing device 102 may actas a server with respect to other devices, such as other clientcomputing devices 102. As just a few examples, the client computingdevices 102 can include mail servers, file servers, database servers,and web servers.

Each client computing device 102 may have one or more applications 110(e.g., software applications) executing thereon which generate andmanipulate the data that is to be protected from loss and managed. Theapplications 110 generally facilitate the operations of an organization(or multiple affiliated organizations), and can include, withoutlimitation, mail server applications (e.g., Microsoft Exchange Server),file server applications, mail client applications (e.g., MicrosoftExchange Client), database applications (e.g., SQL, Oracle, SAP, LotusNotes Database), word processing applications (e.g., Microsoft Word),spreadsheet applications, financial applications, presentationapplications, graphics and/or video applications, browser applications,mobile applications, entertainment applications, and so on.

The client computing devices 102 can have at least one operating system(e.g., Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, IBM z/OS, Linux, otherUnix-based operating systems, etc.) installed thereon, which may supportor host one or more file systems and other applications 110.

The client computing devices 102 and other components in informationmanagement system 100 can be connected to one another via one or morecommunication pathways 114. For example, a first communication pathway114 may connect (or communicatively couple) client computing device 102and secondary storage computing device 106; a second communicationpathway 114 may connect storage manager 140 and client computing device102; and a third communication pathway 114 may connect storage manager140 and secondary storage computing device 106, etc. (see, e.g., FIG. 1Aand FIG. 1C). The communication pathways 114 can include one or morenetworks or other connection types including one or more of thefollowing, without limitation: the Internet, a wide area network (WAN),a local area network (LAN), a Storage Area Network (SAN), a FibreChannel connection, a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) connection,a virtual private network (VPN), a token ring or TCP/IP based network,an intranet network, a point-to-point link, a cellular network, awireless data transmission system, a two-way cable system, aninteractive kiosk network, a satellite network, a broadband network, abaseband network, a neural network, a mesh network, an ad hoc network,other appropriate wired, wireless, or partially wired/wireless computeror telecommunications networks, combinations of the same or the like.The communication pathways 114 in some cases may also includeapplication programming interfaces (APIs) including, e.g., cloud serviceprovider APIs, virtual machine management APIs, and hosted serviceprovider APIs. The underlying infrastructure of communication paths 114may be wired and/or wireless, analog and/or digital, or any combinationthereof; and the facilities used may be private, public, third-partyprovided, or any combination thereof, without limitation.

Primary Data and Exemplary Primary Storage Devices

Primary data 112 according to some embodiments is production data orother “live” data generated by the operating system and/or applications110 operating on a client computing device 102. The primary data 112 isgenerally stored on the primary storage device(s) 104 and is organizedvia a file system supported by the client computing device 102. Forinstance, the client computing device(s) 102 and correspondingapplications 110 may create, access, modify, write, delete, andotherwise use primary data 112. In some cases, some or all of theprimary data 112 can be stored in cloud storage resources (e.g., primarystorage device 104 may be a cloud-based resource).

Primary data 112 is generally in the native format of the sourceapplication 110. According to certain aspects, primary data 112 is aninitial or first (e.g., created before any other copies or before atleast one other copy) stored copy of data generated by the sourceapplication 110. Primary data 112 in some cases is created substantiallydirectly from data generated by the corresponding source applications110.

The primary storage devices 104 storing the primary data 112 may berelatively fast and/or expensive technology (e.g., a disk drive, ahard-disk array, solid state memory, etc.). In addition, primary data112 may be highly changeable and/or may be intended for relatively shortterm retention (e.g., hours, days, or weeks).

According to some embodiments, the client computing device 102 canaccess primary data 112 from the primary storage device 104 by makingconventional file system calls via the operating system. Primary data112 may include structured data (e.g., database files), unstructureddata (e.g., documents), and/or semi-structured data. Some specificexamples are described below with respect to FIG. 1B.

It can be useful in performing certain tasks to organize the primarydata 112 into units of different granularities. In general, primary data112 can include files, directories, file system volumes, data blocks,extents, or any other hierarchies or organizations of data objects. Asused herein, a “data object” can refer to both (1) any file that iscurrently addressable by a file system or that was previouslyaddressable by the file system (e.g., an archive file) and (2) a subsetof such a file (e.g., a data block).

As will be described in further detail, it can also be useful inperforming certain functions of the information management system 100 toaccess and modify metadata within the primary data 112. Metadatagenerally includes information about data objects or characteristicsassociated with the data objects. For simplicity herein, it is to beunderstood that, unless expressly stated otherwise, any reference toprimary data 112 generally also includes its associated metadata, butreferences to the metadata do not include the primary data.

Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following:the data owner (e.g., the client or user that generates the data), thelast modified time (e.g., the time of the most recent modification ofthe data object), a data object name (e.g., a file name), a data objectsize (e.g., a number of bytes of data), information about the content(e.g., an indication as to the existence of a particular search term),user-supplied tags, to/from information for email (e.g., an emailsender, recipient, etc.), creation date, file type (e.g., format orapplication type), last accessed time, application type (e.g., type ofapplication that generated the data object), location/network (e.g., acurrent, past or future location of the data object and network pathwaysto/from the data object), geographic location (e.g., GPS coordinates),frequency of change (e.g., a period in which the data object ismodified), business unit (e.g., a group or department that generates,manages or is otherwise associated with the data object), aginginformation (e.g., a schedule, such as a time period, in which the dataobject is migrated to secondary or long term storage), boot sectors,partition layouts, file location within a file folder directorystructure, user permissions, owners, groups, access control lists[ACLs]), system metadata (e.g., registry information), combinations ofthe same or other similar information related to the data object.

In addition to metadata generated by or related to file systems andoperating systems, some of the applications 110 and/or other componentsof the information management system 100 maintain indices of metadatafor data objects, e.g., metadata associated with individual emailmessages. Thus, each data object may be associated with correspondingmetadata. The use of metadata to perform classification and otherfunctions is described in greater detail below.

Each of the client computing devices 102 are generally associated withand/or in communication with one or more of the primary storage devices104 storing corresponding primary data 112. A client computing device102 may be considered to be “associated with” or “in communication with”a primary storage device 104 if it is capable of one or more of: routingand/or storing data (e.g., primary data 112) to the particular primarystorage device 104, coordinating the routing and/or storing of data tothe particular primary storage device 104, retrieving data from theparticular primary storage device 104, coordinating the retrieval ofdata from the particular primary storage device 104, and modifyingand/or deleting data retrieved from the particular primary storagedevice 104.

The primary storage devices 104 can include any of the different typesof storage devices described above, or some other kind of suitablestorage device. The primary storage devices 104 may have relatively fastI/O times and/or are relatively expensive in comparison to the secondarystorage devices 108. For example, the information management system 100may generally regularly access data and metadata stored on primarystorage devices 104, whereas data and metadata stored on the secondarystorage devices 108 is accessed relatively less frequently.

Primary storage device 104 may be dedicated or shared. In some cases,each primary storage device 104 is dedicated to an associated clientcomputing device 102. For instance, a primary storage device 104 in oneembodiment is a local disk drive of a corresponding client computingdevice 102. In other cases, one or more primary storage devices 104 canbe shared by multiple client computing devices 102, e.g., via a networksuch as in a cloud storage implementation. As one example, a primarystorage device 104 can be a disk array shared by a group of clientcomputing devices 102, such as one of the following types of diskarrays: EMC Clariion, EMC Symmetrix, EMC Celerra, Dell EqualLogic, IBMXIV, NetApp FAS, HP EVA, and HP 3PAR.

The information management system 100 may also include hosted services(not shown), which may be hosted in some cases by an entity other thanthe organization that employs the other components of the informationmanagement system 100. For instance, the hosted services may be providedby various online service providers to the organization. Such serviceproviders can provide services including social networking services,hosted email services, or hosted productivity applications or otherhosted applications). Hosted services may include software-as-a-service(SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), application service providers(ASPs), cloud services, or other mechanisms for delivering functionalityvia a network. As it provides services to users, each hosted service maygenerate additional data and metadata under management of theinformation management system 100, e.g., as primary data 112. In somecases, the hosted services may be accessed using one of the applications110. As an example, a hosted mail service may be accessed via browserrunning on a client computing device 102. The hosted services may beimplemented in a variety of computing environments. In some cases, theyare implemented in an environment having a similar arrangement to theinformation management system 100, where various physical and logicalcomponents are distributed over a network.

Secondary Copies and Exemplary Secondary Storage Devices

The primary data 112 stored on the primary storage devices 104 may becompromised in some cases, such as when an employee deliberately oraccidentally deletes or overwrites primary data 112 during their normalcourse of work. Or the primary storage devices 104 can be damaged, lost,or otherwise corrupted. For recovery and/or regulatory compliancepurposes, it is therefore useful to generate copies of the primary data112. Accordingly, the information management system 100 includes one ormore secondary storage computing devices 106 and one or more secondarystorage devices 108 configured to create and store one or more secondarycopies 116 of the primary data 112 and associated metadata. Thesecondary storage computing devices 106 and the secondary storagedevices 108 may sometimes be referred to as a secondary storagesubsystem 118.

Creation of secondary copies 116 can help in search and analysis effortsand meet other information management goals, such as: restoring dataand/or metadata if an original version (e.g., of primary data 112) islost (e.g., by deletion, corruption, or disaster); allowingpoint-in-time recovery; complying with regulatory data retention andelectronic discovery (e-discovery) requirements; reducing utilizedstorage capacity; facilitating organization and search of data;improving user access to data files across multiple computing devicesand/or hosted services; and implementing data retention policies.

The client computing devices 102 access or receive primary data 112 andcommunicate the data, e.g., over one or more communication pathways 114,for storage in the secondary storage device(s) 108.

A secondary copy 116 can comprise a separate stored copy of applicationdata that is derived from one or more earlier-created, stored copies(e.g., derived from primary data 112 or another secondary copy 116).Secondary copies 116 can include point-in-time data, and may be intendedfor relatively long-term retention (e.g., weeks, months or years),before some or all of the data is moved to other storage or isdiscarded.

In some cases, a secondary copy 116 is a copy of application datacreated and stored subsequent to at least one other stored instance(e.g., subsequent to corresponding primary data 112 or to anothersecondary copy 116), in a different storage device than at least oneprevious stored copy, and/or remotely from at least one previous storedcopy. In some other cases, secondary copies can be stored in the samestorage device as primary data 112 and/or other previously storedcopies. For example, in one embodiment a disk array capable ofperforming hardware snapshots stores primary data 112 and creates andstores hardware snapshots of the primary data 112 as secondary copies116. Secondary copies 116 may be stored in relatively slow and/or lowcost storage (e.g., magnetic tape). A secondary copy 116 may be storedin a backup or archive format, or in some other format different thanthe native source application format or other primary data format.

In some cases, secondary copies 116 are indexed so users can browse andrestore at another point in time. After creation of a secondary copy 116representative of certain primary data 112, a pointer or other locationindicia (e.g., a stub) may be placed in primary data 112, or beotherwise associated with primary data 112 to indicate the currentlocation on the secondary storage device(s) 108 of secondary copy 116.

Since an instance of a data object or metadata in primary data 112 maychange over time as it is modified by an application 110 (or hostedservice or the operating system), the information management system 100may create and manage multiple secondary copies 116 of a particular dataobject or metadata, each representing the state of the data object inprimary data 112 at a particular point in time. Moreover, since aninstance of a data object in primary data 112 may eventually be deletedfrom the primary storage device 104 and the file system, the informationmanagement system 100 may continue to manage point-in-timerepresentations of that data object, even though the instance in primarydata 112 no longer exists.

For virtualized computing devices the operating system and otherapplications 110 of the client computing device(s) 102 may executewithin or under the management of virtualization software (e.g., a VMM),and the primary storage device(s) 104 may comprise a virtual diskcreated on a physical storage device. The information management system100 may create secondary copies 116 of the files or other data objectsin a virtual disk file and/or secondary copies 116 of the entire virtualdisk file itself (e.g., of an entire .vmdk file).

Secondary copies 116 may be distinguished from corresponding primarydata 112 in a variety of ways, some of which will now be described.First, as discussed, secondary copies 116 can be stored in a differentformat (e.g., backup, archive, or other non-native format) than primarydata 112. For this or other reasons, secondary copies 116 may not bedirectly useable by the applications 110 of the client computing device102, e.g., via standard system calls or otherwise without modification,processing, or other intervention by the information management system100.

Secondary copies 116 are also in some embodiments stored on a secondarystorage device 108 that is inaccessible to the applications 110 runningon the client computing devices 102 (and/or hosted services). Somesecondary copies 116 may be “offline copies,” in that they are notreadily available (e.g., not mounted to tape or disk). Offline copiescan include copies of data that the information management system 100can access without human intervention (e.g., tapes within an automatedtape library, but not yet mounted in a drive), and copies that theinformation management system 100 can access only with at least somehuman intervention (e.g., tapes located at an offsite storage site).

The Use of Intermediate Devices for Creating Secondary Copies

Creating secondary copies can be a challenging task. For instance, therecan be hundreds or thousands of client computing devices 102 continuallygenerating large volumes of primary data 112 to be protected. Also,there can be significant overhead involved in the creation of secondarycopies 116. Moreover, secondary storage devices 108 may be specialpurpose components, and interacting with them can require specializedintelligence.

In some cases, the client computing devices 102 interact directly withthe secondary storage device 108 to create the secondary copies 116.However, in view of the factors described above, this approach cannegatively impact the ability of the client computing devices 102 toserve the applications 110 and produce primary data 112. Further, theclient computing devices 102 may not be optimized for interaction withthe secondary storage devices 108.

Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system 100includes one or more software and/or hardware components which generallyact as intermediaries between the client computing devices 102 and thesecondary storage devices 108. In addition to off-loading certainresponsibilities from the client computing devices 102, theseintermediate components can provide other benefits. For instance, asdiscussed further below with respect to FIG. 1D, distributing some ofthe work involved in creating secondary copies 116 can enhancescalability.

The intermediate components can include one or more secondary storagecomputing devices 106 as shown in FIG. 1A and/or one or more mediaagents, which can be software modules operating on correspondingsecondary storage computing devices 106 (or other appropriate computingdevices). Media agents are discussed below (e.g., with respect to FIGS.1C-1E).

The secondary storage computing device(s) 106 can comprise any of thecomputing devices described above, without limitation. In some cases,the secondary storage computing device(s) 106 include specializedhardware and/or software componentry for interacting with the secondarystorage devices 108.

To create a secondary copy 116 involving the copying of data from theprimary storage subsystem 117 to the secondary storage subsystem 118,the client computing device 102 in some embodiments communicates theprimary data 112 to be copied (or a processed version thereof) to thedesignated secondary storage computing device 106, via the communicationpathway 114. The secondary storage computing device 106 in turn conveysthe received data (or a processed version thereof) to the secondarystorage device 108. In some such configurations, the communicationpathway 114 between the client computing device 102 and the secondarystorage computing device 106 comprises a portion of a LAN, WAN or SAN.In other cases, at least some client computing devices 102 communicatedirectly with the secondary storage devices 108 (e.g., via Fibre Channelor SCSI connections). In some other cases, one or more secondary copies116 are created from existing secondary copies, such as in the case ofan auxiliary copy operation, described in greater detail below.

Exemplary Primary Data and an Exemplary Secondary Copy

FIG. 1B is a detailed view showing some specific examples of primarydata stored on the primary storage device(s) 104 and secondary copy datastored on the secondary storage device(s) 108, with other components inthe system removed for the purposes of illustration. Stored on theprimary storage device(s) 104 are primary data objects including wordprocessing documents 119A-B, spreadsheets 120, presentation documents122, video files 124, image files 126, email mailboxes 128 (andcorresponding email messages 129A-C), html/xml or other types of markuplanguage files 130, databases 132 and corresponding tables or other datastructures 133A-133C).

Some or all primary data objects are associated with correspondingmetadata (e.g., “Meta1-11”), which may include file system metadataand/or application specific metadata. Stored on the secondary storagedevice(s) 108 are secondary copy data objects 134A-C which may includecopies of or otherwise represent corresponding primary data objects andmetadata.

As shown, the secondary copy data objects 134A-C can individuallyrepresent more than one primary data object. For example, secondary copydata object 134A represents three separate primary data objects 133C,122, and 129C (represented as 133C′, 122′, and 129C′, respectively, andaccompanied by the corresponding metadata Meta11, Meta3, and Meta8,respectively). Moreover, as indicated by the prime mark (′), a secondarycopy object may store a representation of a primary data object and/ormetadata differently than the original format, e.g., in a compressed,encrypted, deduplicated, or other modified format. Likewise, secondarydata object 1346 represents primary data objects 120, 1336, and 119A as120′, 1336′, and 119A′, respectively and accompanied by correspondingmetadata Meta2, Meta10, and Meta1, respectively. Also, secondary dataobject 134C represents primary data objects 133A, 1196, and 129A as133A′, 1196′, and 129A′, respectively, accompanied by correspondingmetadata Meta9, Meta5, and Meta6, respectively.

Exemplary Information Management System Architecture

The information management system 100 can incorporate a variety ofdifferent hardware and software components, which can in turn beorganized with respect to one another in many different configurations,depending on the embodiment. There are critical design choices involvedin specifying the functional responsibilities of the components and therole of each component in the information management system 100. Forinstance, as will be discussed, such design choices can impactperformance as well as the adaptability of the information managementsystem 100 to data growth or other changing circumstances.

FIG. 1C shows an information management system 100 designed according tothese considerations and which includes: storage manager 140, acentralized storage and/or information manager that is configured toperform certain control functions, one or more data agents 142 executingon the client computing device(s) 102 configured to process primary data112, and one or more media agents 144 executing on the one or moresecondary storage computing devices 106 for performing tasks involvingthe secondary storage devices 108. While distributing functionalityamongst multiple computing devices can have certain advantages, in othercontexts it can be beneficial to consolidate functionality on the samecomputing device. As such, in various other embodiments, one or more ofthe components shown in FIG. 1C as being implemented on separatecomputing devices are implemented on the same computing device. In oneconfiguration, a storage manager 140, one or more data agents 142, andone or more media agents 144 are all implemented on the same computingdevice. In another embodiment, one or more data agents 142 and one ormore media agents 144 are implemented on the same computing device,while the storage manager 140 is implemented on a separate computingdevice, etc. without limitation.

Storage Manager

As noted, the number of components in the information management system100 and the amount of data under management can be quite large. Managingthe components and data is therefore a significant task, and a task thatcan grow in an often unpredictable fashion as the quantity of componentsand data scale to meet the needs of the organization. For these andother reasons, according to certain embodiments, responsibility forcontrolling the information management system 100, or at least asignificant portion of that responsibility, is allocated to the storagemanager 140. By distributing control functionality in this manner, thestorage manager 140 can be adapted independently according to changingcircumstances. Moreover, a computing device for hosting the storagemanager 140 can be selected to best suit the functions of the storagemanager 140. These and other advantages are described in further detailbelow with respect to FIG. 1D.

The storage manager 140 may be a software module or other application,which, in some embodiments operates in conjunction with one or moreassociated data structures, e.g., a dedicated database (e.g., managementdatabase 146). In some embodiments, storage manager 140 is a computingdevice comprising circuitry for executing computer instructions andperforms the functions described herein. The storage manager generallyinitiates, performs, coordinates and/or controls storage and otherinformation management operations performed by the informationmanagement system 100, e.g., to protect and control the primary data 112and secondary copies 116 of data and metadata. In general, storagemanager 100 may be said to manage information management system 100,which includes managing the constituent components, e.g., data agentsand media agents, etc.

As shown by the dashed arrowed lines 114 in FIG. 1C, the storage manager140 may communicate with and/or control some or all elements of theinformation management system 100, such as the data agents 142 and mediaagents 144. Thus, in certain embodiments, control information originatesfrom the storage manager 140 and status reporting is transmitted tostorage manager 140 by the various managed components, whereas payloaddata and payload metadata is generally communicated between the dataagents 142 and the media agents 144 (or otherwise between the clientcomputing device(s) 102 and the secondary storage computing device(s)106), e.g., at the direction of and under the management of the storagemanager 140. Control information can generally include parameters andinstructions for carrying out information management operations, suchas, without limitation, instructions to perform a task associated withan operation, timing information specifying when to initiate a taskassociated with an operation, data path information specifying whatcomponents to communicate with or access in carrying out an operation,and the like. Payload data, on the other hand, can include the actualdata involved in the storage operation, such as content data written toa secondary storage device 108 in a secondary copy operation. Payloadmetadata can include any of the types of metadata described herein, andmay be written to a storage device along with the payload content data(e.g., in the form of a header).

In other embodiments, some information management operations arecontrolled by other components in the information management system 100(e.g., the media agent(s) 144 or data agent(s) 142), instead of or incombination with the storage manager 140.

According to certain embodiments, the storage manager 140 provides oneor more of the following functions:

-   -   initiating execution of secondary copy operations;    -   managing secondary storage devices 108 and inventory/capacity of        the same;    -   reporting, searching, and/or classification of data in the        information management system 100;    -   allocating secondary storage devices 108 for secondary storage        operations;    -   monitoring completion of and providing status reporting related        to secondary storage operations;    -   tracking age information relating to secondary copies 116,        secondary storage devices 108, and comparing the age information        against retention guidelines;    -   tracking movement of data within the information management        system 100;    -   tracking logical associations between components in the        information management system 100;    -   protecting metadata associated with the information management        system 100; and    -   implementing operations management functionality.

The storage manager 140 may maintain a database 146 (or “storage managerdatabase 146” or “management database 146”) of management-related dataand information management policies 148. The database 146 may include amanagement index 150 (or “index 150”) or other data structure thatstores logical associations between components of the system, userpreferences and/or profiles (e.g., preferences regarding encryption,compression, or deduplication of primary or secondary copy data,preferences regarding the scheduling, type, or other aspects of primaryor secondary copy or other operations, mappings of particularinformation management users or user accounts to certain computingdevices or other components, etc.), management tasks, mediacontainerization, or other useful data. For example, the storage manager140 may use the index 150 to track logical associations between mediaagents 144 and secondary storage devices 108 and/or movement of datafrom primary storage devices 104 to secondary storage devices 108. Forinstance, the index 150 may store data associating a client computingdevice 102 with a particular media agent 144 and/or secondary storagedevice 108, as specified in an information management policy 148 (e.g.,a storage policy, which is defined in more detail below).

Administrators and other people may be able to configure and initiatecertain information management operations on an individual basis. Butwhile this may be acceptable for some recovery operations or otherrelatively less frequent tasks, it is often not workable forimplementing on-going organization-wide data protection and management.Thus, the information management system 100 may utilize informationmanagement policies 148 for specifying and executing informationmanagement operations (e.g., on an automated basis). Generally, aninformation management policy 148 can include a data structure or otherinformation source that specifies a set of parameters (e.g., criteriaand rules) associated with storage or other information managementoperations.

The storage manager database 146 may maintain the information managementpolicies 148 and associated data, although the information managementpolicies 148 can be stored in any appropriate location. For instance, aninformation management policy 148 such as a storage policy may be storedas metadata in a media agent database 152 or in a secondary storagedevice 108 (e.g., as an archive copy) for use in restore operations orother information management operations, depending on the embodiment.Information management policies 148 are described further below.

According to certain embodiments, the storage manager database 146comprises a relational database (e.g., an SQL database) for trackingmetadata, such as metadata associated with secondary copy operations(e.g., what client computing devices 102 and corresponding data wereprotected). This and other metadata may additionally be stored in otherlocations, such as at the secondary storage computing devices 106 or onthe secondary storage devices 108, allowing data recovery without theuse of the storage manager 140 in some cases.

As shown, the storage manager 140 may include a jobs agent 156, a userinterface 158, and a management agent 154, all of which may beimplemented as interconnected software modules or application programs.

The jobs agent 156 in some embodiments initiates, controls, and/ormonitors the status of some or all storage or other informationmanagement operations previously performed, currently being performed,or scheduled to be performed by the information management system 100.For instance, the jobs agent 156 may access information managementpolicies 148 to determine when and how to initiate and control secondarycopy and other information management operations, as will be discussedfurther.

The user interface 158 may include information processing and displaysoftware, such as a graphical user interface (“GUI”), an applicationprogram interface (“API”), or other interactive interface(s) throughwhich users and system processes can retrieve information about thestatus of information management operations (e.g., storage operations)or issue instructions to the information management system 100 and itsconstituent components. Via the user interface 158, users may optionallyissue instructions to the components in the information managementsystem 100 regarding performance of storage and recovery operations. Forexample, a user may modify a schedule concerning the number of pendingsecondary copy operations. As another example, a user may employ the GUIto view the status of pending storage operations or to monitor thestatus of certain components in the information management system 100(e.g., the amount of capacity left in a storage device).

An “information management cell” (or “storage operation cell” or “cell”)may generally include a logical and/or physical grouping of acombination of hardware and software components associated withperforming information management operations on electronic data,typically one storage manager 140 and at least one client computingdevice 102 (comprising data agent(s) 142) and at least one media agent144. For instance, the components shown in FIG. 1C may together form aninformation management cell. Multiple cells may be organizedhierarchically. With this configuration, cells may inherit propertiesfrom hierarchically superior cells or be controlled by other cells inthe hierarchy (automatically or otherwise). Alternatively, in someembodiments, cells may inherit or otherwise be associated withinformation management policies, preferences, information managementmetrics, or other properties or characteristics according to theirrelative position in a hierarchy of cells. Cells may also be delineatedand/or organized hierarchically according to function, geography,architectural considerations, or other factors useful or desirable inperforming information management operations. A first cell may representa geographic segment of an enterprise, such as a Chicago office, and asecond cell may represent a different geographic segment, such as a NewYork office. Other cells may represent departments within a particularoffice. Where delineated by function, a first cell may perform one ormore first types of information management operations (e.g., one or morefirst types of secondary or other copies), and a second cell may performone or more second types of information management operations (e.g., oneor more second types of secondary or other copies).

The storage manager 140 may also track information that permits it toselect, designate, or otherwise identify content indices, deduplicationdatabases, or similar databases or resources or data sets within itsinformation management cell (or another cell) to be searched in responseto certain queries. Such queries may be entered by the user viainteraction with the user interface 158. In general, the managementagent 154 allows multiple information management cells to communicatewith one another. For example, the information management system 100 insome cases may be one information management cell of a network ofmultiple cells adjacent to one another or otherwise logically related ina WAN or LAN. With this arrangement, the cells may be connected to oneanother through respective management agents 154.

For instance, the management agent 154 can provide the storage manager140 with the ability to communicate with other components within theinformation management system 100 (and/or other cells within a largerinformation management system) via network protocols and applicationprogramming interfaces (“APIs”) including, e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, REST,virtualization software APIs, cloud service provider APIs, and hostedservice provider APIs. Inter-cell communication and hierarchy isdescribed in greater detail in e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,747,579 and7,343,453, which are incorporated by reference herein.

Data Agents

As discussed, a variety of different types of applications 110 canoperate on a given client computing device 102, including operatingsystems, database applications, e-mail applications, and virtualmachines, just to name a few. And, as part of the process of creatingand restoring secondary copies 116, the client computing devices 102 maybe tasked with processing and preparing the primary data 112 from thesevarious different applications 110. Moreover, the nature of theprocessing/preparation can differ across clients and application types,e.g., due to inherent structural and formatting differences amongapplications 110.

The one or more data agent(s) 142 are therefore advantageouslyconfigured in some embodiments to assist in the performance ofinformation management operations based on the type of data that isbeing protected, at a client-specific and/or application-specific level.

The data agent 142 may be a software module or component that isgenerally responsible for managing, initiating, or otherwise assistingin the performance of information management operations in informationmanagement system 100, generally as directed by storage manager 140. Forinstance, the data agent 142 may take part in performing data storageoperations such as the copying, archiving, migrating, and/or replicatingof primary data 112 stored in the primary storage device(s) 104. Thedata agent 142 may receive control information from the storage manager140, such as commands to transfer copies of data objects, metadata, andother payload data to the media agents 144.

In some embodiments, a data agent 142 may be distributed between theclient computing device 102 and storage manager 140 (and any otherintermediate components) or may be deployed from a remote location orits functions approximated by a remote process that performs some or allof the functions of data agent 142. In addition, a data agent 142 mayperform some functions provided by a media agent 144, or may performother functions such as encryption and deduplication.

As indicated, each data agent 142 may be specialized for a particularapplication 110, and the system can employ multiple application-specificdata agents 142, each of which may perform information managementoperations (e.g., perform backup, migration, and data recovery)associated with a different application 110. For instance, differentindividual data agents 142 may be designed to handle Microsoft Exchangedata, Lotus Notes data, Microsoft Windows file system data, MicrosoftActive Directory Objects data, SQL Server data, SharePoint data, Oracledatabase data, SAP database data, virtual machines and/or associateddata, and other types of data.

A file system data agent, for example, may handle data files and/orother file system information. If a client computing device 102 has twoor more types of data, a specialized data agent 142 may be used for eachdata type to copy, archive, migrate, and restore the client computingdevice 102 data. For example, to backup, migrate, and/or restore all ofthe data on a Microsoft Exchange server, the client computing device 102may use a Microsoft Exchange Mailbox data agent 142 to back up theExchange mailboxes, a Microsoft Exchange Database data agent 142 to backup the Exchange databases, a Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data agent142 to back up the Exchange Public Folders, and a Microsoft Windows FileSystem data agent 142 to back up the file system of the client computingdevice 102. In such embodiments, these specialized data agents 142 maybe treated as four separate data agents 142 even though they operate onthe same client computing device 102.

Other embodiments may employ one or more generic data agents 142 thatcan handle and process data from two or more different applications 110,or that can handle and process multiple data types, instead of or inaddition to using specialized data agents 142. For example, one genericdata agent 142 may be used to back up, migrate and restore MicrosoftExchange Mailbox data and Microsoft Exchange Database data while anothergeneric data agent may handle Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data andMicrosoft Windows File System data.

Each data agent 142 may be configured to access data and/or metadatastored in the primary storage device(s) 104 associated with the dataagent 142 and process the data as appropriate. For example, during asecondary copy operation, the data agent 142 may arrange or assemble thedata and metadata into one or more files having a certain format (e.g.,a particular backup or archive format) before transferring the file(s)to a media agent 144 or other component. The file(s) may include a listof files or other metadata. Each data agent 142 can also assist inrestoring data or metadata to primary storage devices 104 from asecondary copy 116. For instance, the data agent 142 may operate inconjunction with the storage manager 140 and one or more of the mediaagents 144 to restore data from secondary storage device(s) 108.

Media Agents

As indicated above with respect to FIG. 1A, off-loading certainresponsibilities from the client computing devices 102 to intermediatecomponents such as the media agent(s) 144 can provide a number ofbenefits including improved client computing device 102 operation,faster secondary copy operation performance, and enhanced scalability.In one specific example which will be discussed below in further detail,the media agent 144 can act as a local cache of copied data and/ormetadata that it has stored to the secondary storage device(s) 108,providing improved restore capabilities.

Generally speaking, a media agent 144 may be implemented as a softwaremodule that manages, coordinates, and facilitates the transmission ofdata, as directed by the storage manager 140, between a client computingdevice 102 and one or more secondary storage devices 108. Whereas thestorage manager 140 controls the operation of the information managementsystem 100, the media agent 144 generally provides a portal to secondarystorage devices 108. For instance, other components in the systeminteract with the media agents 144 to gain access to data stored on thesecondary storage devices 108, whether it be for the purposes ofreading, writing, modifying, or deleting data. Moreover, as will bedescribed further, media agents 144 can generate and store informationrelating to characteristics of the stored data and/or metadata, or cangenerate and store other types of information that generally providesinsight into the contents of the secondary storage devices 108.

Media agents 144 can comprise separate nodes in the informationmanagement system 100 (e.g., nodes that are separate from the clientcomputing devices 102, storage manager 140, and/or secondary storagedevices 108). In general, a node within the information managementsystem 100 can be a logically and/or physically separate component, andin some cases is a component that is individually addressable orotherwise identifiable. In addition, each media agent 144 may operate ona dedicated secondary storage computing device 106 in some cases, whilein other embodiments a plurality of media agents 144 operate on the samesecondary storage computing device 106.

A media agent 144 (and corresponding media agent database 152) may beconsidered to be “associated with” a particular secondary storage device108 if that media agent 144 is capable of one or more of: routing and/orstoring data to the particular secondary storage device 108,coordinating the routing and/or storing of data to the particularsecondary storage device 108, retrieving data from the particularsecondary storage device 108, coordinating the retrieval of data from aparticular secondary storage device 108, and modifying and/or deletingdata retrieved from the particular secondary storage device 108.

While media agent(s) 144 are generally associated with one or moresecondary storage devices 108, one or more media agents 144 in certainembodiments are physically separate from the secondary storage devices108. For instance, the media agents 144 may operate on secondary storagecomputing devices 106 having different housings or packages than thesecondary storage devices 108. In one example, a media agent 144operates on a first server computer and is in communication with asecondary storage device(s) 108 operating in a separate, rack-mountedRAID-based system.

Where the information management system 100 includes multiple mediaagents 144 (see, e.g., FIG. 1D), a first media agent 144 may providefailover functionality for a second, failed media agent 144. Inaddition, media agents 144 can be dynamically selected for storageoperations to provide load balancing. Failover and load balancing aredescribed in greater detail below.

In operation, a media agent 144 associated with a particular secondarystorage device 108 may instruct the secondary storage device 108 toperform an information management operation. For instance, a media agent144 may instruct a tape library to use a robotic arm or other retrievalmeans to load or eject a certain storage media, and to subsequentlyarchive, migrate, or retrieve data to or from that media, e.g., for thepurpose of restoring the data to a client computing device 102. Asanother example, a secondary storage device 108 may include an array ofhard disk drives or solid state drives organized in a RAIDconfiguration, and the media agent 144 may forward a logical unit number(LUN) and other appropriate information to the array, which uses thereceived information to execute the desired storage operation. The mediaagent 144 may communicate with a secondary storage device 108 via asuitable communications link, such as a SCSI or Fiber Channel link.

As shown, each media agent 144 may maintain an associated media agentdatabase 152. The media agent database 152 may be stored in a disk orother storage device (not shown) that is local to the secondary storagecomputing device 106 on which the media agent 144 operates. In othercases, the media agent database 152 is stored remotely from thesecondary storage computing device 106.

The media agent database 152 can include, among other things, an index153 (see, e.g., FIG. 1C), which comprises information generated duringsecondary copy operations and other storage or information managementoperations. The index 153 provides a media agent 144 or other componentwith a fast and efficient mechanism for locating secondary copies 116 orother data stored in the secondary storage devices 108. In some cases,the index 153 does not form a part of and is instead separate from themedia agent database 152.

A media agent index 153 or other data structure associated with theparticular media agent 144 may include information about the storeddata. For instance, for each secondary copy 116, the index 153 mayinclude metadata such as a list of the data objects (e.g.,files/subdirectories, database objects, mailbox objects, etc.), a pathto the secondary copy 116 on the corresponding secondary storage device108, location information indicating where the data objects are storedin the secondary storage device 108, when the data objects were createdor modified, etc. Thus, the index 153 includes metadata associated withthe secondary copies 116 that is readily available for use withouthaving to be first retrieved from the secondary storage device 108. Inyet further embodiments, some or all of the information in index 153 mayinstead or additionally be stored along with the secondary copies ofdata in a secondary storage device 108. In some embodiments, thesecondary storage devices 108 can include sufficient information toperform a “bare metal restore”, where the operating system of a failedclient computing device 102 or other restore target is automaticallyrebuilt as part of a restore operation.

Because the index 153 maintained in the media agent database 152 mayoperate as a cache, it can also be referred to as “an index cache.” Insuch cases, information stored in the index cache 153 typicallycomprises data that reflects certain particulars about storageoperations that have occurred relatively recently. After some triggeringevent, such as after a certain period of time elapses, or the indexcache 153 reaches a particular size, the index cache 153 may be copiedor migrated to a secondary storage device(s) 108. This information mayneed to be retrieved and uploaded back into the index cache 153 orotherwise restored to a media agent 144 to facilitate retrieval of datafrom the secondary storage device(s) 108. In some embodiments, thecached information may include format or containerization informationrelated to archives or other files stored on the storage device(s) 108.In this manner, the index cache 153 allows for accelerated restores.

In some alternative embodiments the media agent 144 generally acts as acoordinator or facilitator of storage operations between clientcomputing devices 102 and corresponding secondary storage devices 108,but does not actually write the data to the secondary storage device108. For instance, the storage manager 140 (or the media agent 144) mayinstruct a client computing device 102 and secondary storage device 108to communicate with one another directly. In such a case the clientcomputing device 102 transmits the data directly or via one or moreintermediary components to the secondary storage device 108 according tothe received instructions, and vice versa. In some such cases, the mediaagent 144 may still receive, process, and/or maintain metadata relatedto the storage operations. Moreover, in these embodiments, the payloaddata can flow through the media agent 144 for the purposes of populatingthe index cache 153 maintained in the media agent database 152, but notfor writing to the secondary storage device 108.

The media agent 144 and/or other components such as the storage manager140 may in some cases incorporate additional functionality, such as dataclassification, content indexing, deduplication, encryption,compression, and the like. Further details regarding these and otherfunctions are described below.

Distributed, Scalable Architecture

As described, certain functions of the information management system 100can be distributed amongst various physical and/or logical components inthe system. For instance, one or more of the storage manager 140, dataagents 142, and media agents 144 may operate on computing devices thatare physically separate from one another. This architecture can providea number of benefits.

For instance, hardware and software design choices for each distributedcomponent can be targeted to suit its particular function. The secondarycomputing devices 106 on which the media agents 144 operate can betailored for interaction with associated secondary storage devices 108and provide fast index cache operation, among other specific tasks.Similarly, the client computing device(s) 102 can be selected toeffectively service the applications 110 thereon, in order toefficiently produce and store primary data 112.

Moreover, in some cases, one or more of the individual components in theinformation management system 100 can be distributed to multiple,separate computing devices. As one example, for large file systems wherethe amount of data stored in the management database 146 is relativelylarge, the database 146 may be migrated to or otherwise reside on aspecialized database server (e.g., an SQL server) separate from a serverthat implements the other functions of the storage manager 140. Thisdistributed configuration can provide added protection because thedatabase 146 can be protected with standard database utilities (e.g.,SQL log shipping or database replication) independent from otherfunctions of the storage manager 140. The database 146 can beefficiently replicated to a remote site for use in the event of adisaster or other data loss at the primary site. Or the database 146 canbe replicated to another computing device within the same site, such asto a higher performance machine in the event that a storage manager hostdevice can no longer service the needs of a growing informationmanagement system 100.

The distributed architecture also provides both scalability andefficient component utilization. FIG. 1D shows an embodiment of theinformation management system 100 including a plurality of clientcomputing devices 102 and associated data agents 142 as well as aplurality of secondary storage computing devices 106 and associatedmedia agents 144.

Additional components can be added or subtracted based on the evolvingneeds of the information management system 100. For instance, dependingon where bottlenecks are identified, administrators can add additionalclient computing devices 102, secondary storage computing devices 106(and corresponding media agents 144), and/or secondary storage devices108. Moreover, where multiple fungible components are available, loadbalancing can be implemented to dynamically address identifiedbottlenecks. As an example, the storage manager 140 may dynamicallyselect which media agents 144 and/or secondary storage devices 108 touse for storage operations based on a processing load analysis of themedia agents 144 and/or secondary storage devices 108, respectively.

Moreover, each client computing device 102 in some embodiments cancommunicate with, among other components, any of the media agents 144,e.g., as directed by the storage manager 140. And each media agent 144may be able to communicate with, among other components, any of thesecondary storage devices 108, e.g., as directed by the storage manager140. Thus, operations can be routed to the secondary storage devices 108in a dynamic and highly flexible manner, to provide load balancing,failover, and the like. Further examples of scalable systems capable ofdynamic storage operations, and of systems capable of performing loadbalancing and fail over are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, whichis incorporated by reference herein.

In alternative configurations, certain components are not distributedand may instead reside and execute on the same computing device. Forexample, in some embodiments, one or more data agents 142 and thestorage manager 140 operate on the same client computing device 102. Inanother embodiment, one or more data agents 142 and one or more mediaagents 144 operate on a single computing device.

Exemplary Types of Information Management Operations

In order to protect and leverage stored data, the information managementsystem 100 can be configured to perform a variety of informationmanagement operations. As will be described, these operations cangenerally include secondary copy and other data movement operations,processing and data manipulation operations, analysis, reporting, andmanagement operations. The operations described herein may be performedon any type of computing device, e.g., between two computers connectedvia a LAN, to a mobile client telecommunications device connected to aserver via a WLAN, to any manner of client computing device coupled to acloud storage target, etc., without limitation.

Data Movement Operations

Data movement operations according to certain embodiments are generallyoperations that involve the copying or migration of data (e.g., payloaddata) between different locations in the information management system100 in an original/native and/or one or more different formats. Forexample, data movement operations can include operations in which storeddata is copied, migrated, or otherwise transferred from one or morefirst storage devices to one or more second storage devices, such asfrom primary storage device(s) 104 to secondary storage device(s) 108,from secondary storage device(s) 108 to different secondary storagedevice(s) 108, from secondary storage devices 108 to primary storagedevices 104, or from primary storage device(s) 104 to different primarystorage device(s) 104.

Data movement operations can include by way of example, backupoperations, archive operations, information lifecycle managementoperations such as hierarchical storage management operations,replication operations (e.g., continuous data replication operations),snapshot operations, deduplication or single-instancing operations,auxiliary copy operations, and the like. As will be discussed, some ofthese operations involve the copying, migration or other movement ofdata, without actually creating multiple, distinct copies. Nonetheless,some or all of these operations are referred to as “copy” operations forsimplicity.

Backup Operations

A backup operation creates a copy of a version of data (e.g., one ormore files or other data units) in primary data 112 at a particularpoint in time. Each subsequent backup copy may be maintainedindependently of the first. Further, a backup copy in some embodimentsis generally stored in a form that is different than the native format,e.g., a backup format. This can be in contrast to the version in primarydata 112 from which the backup copy is derived, and which may instead bestored in a native format of the source application(s) 110. In variouscases, backup copies can be stored in a format in which the data iscompressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwise modified from theoriginal application format. For example, a backup copy may be stored ina backup format that facilitates compression and/or efficient long-termstorage.

Backup copies can have relatively long retention periods as compared toprimary data 112, and may be stored on media with slower retrieval timesthan primary data 112 and certain other types of secondary copies 116.On the other hand, backups may have relatively shorter retention periodsthan some other types of secondary copies 116, such as archive copies(described below). Backups may sometimes be stored at an offsitelocation.

Backup operations can include full backups, differential backups,incremental backups, “synthetic full” backups, and/or creating a“reference copy.” A full backup (or “standard full backup”) in someembodiments is generally a complete image of the data to be protected.However, because full backup copies can consume a relatively largeamount of storage, it can be useful to use a full backup copy as abaseline and only store changes relative to the full backup copy forsubsequent backup copies.

For instance, a differential backup operation (or cumulative incrementalbackup operation) tracks and stores changes that have occurred since thelast full backup. Differential backups can grow quickly in size, but canprovide relatively efficient restore times because a restore can becompleted in some cases using only the full backup copy and the latestdifferential copy.

An incremental backup operation generally tracks and stores changessince the most recent backup copy of any type, which can greatly reducestorage utilization. In some cases, however, restore times can berelatively long in comparison to full or differential backups becausecompleting a restore operation may involve accessing a full backup inaddition to multiple incremental backups.

Synthetic full backups generally consolidate data without directlybacking up data from the client computing device. A synthetic fullbackup is created from the most recent full backup (i.e., standard orsynthetic) and subsequent incremental and/or differential backups. Theresulting synthetic full backup is identical to what would have beencreated had the last backup for the subclient been a standard fullbackup. Unlike standard full, incremental, and differential backups, asynthetic full backup does not actually transfer data from a clientcomputer to the backup media, because it operates as a backupconsolidator. A synthetic full backup extracts the index data of eachparticipating subclient. Using this index data and the previously backedup user data images, it builds new full backup images, one for eachsubclient. The new backup images consolidate the index and user datastored in the related incremental, differential, and previous fullbackups, in some embodiments creating an archive file at the subclientlevel.

Any of the above types of backup operations can be at the volume-level,file-level, or block-level. Volume level backup operations generallyinvolve the copying of a data volume (e.g., a logical disk or partition)as a whole. In a file-level backup, the information management system100 may generally track changes to individual files, and includes copiesof files in the backup copy. In the case of a block-level backup, filesare broken into constituent blocks, and changes are tracked at theblock-level. Upon restore, the information management system 100reassembles the blocks into files in a transparent fashion.

Far less data may actually be transferred and copied to the secondarystorage devices 108 during a file-level copy than a volume-level copy.Likewise, a block-level copy may involve the transfer of less data thana file-level copy, resulting in faster execution times. However,restoring a relatively higher-granularity copy can result in longerrestore times. For instance, when restoring a block-level copy, theprocess of locating constituent blocks can sometimes result in longerrestore times as compared to file-level backups. Similar to backupoperations, the other types of secondary copy operations describedherein can also be implemented at either the volume-level, file-level,or block-level.

For example, in some embodiments, a reference copy may comprisecopy(ies) of selected objects from backed up data, typically to helporganize data by keeping contextual information from multiple sourcestogether, and/or help retain specific data for a longer period of time,such as for legal hold needs. A reference copy generally maintains dataintegrity, and when the data is restored, it may be viewed in the sameformat as the source data. In some embodiments, a reference copy isbased on a specialized client, individual subclient and associatedinformation management policies (e.g., storage policy, retention policy,etc.) that are administered within information management system 100.

Archive Operations

Because backup operations generally involve maintaining a version of thecopied data in primary data 112 and also maintaining backup copies insecondary storage device(s) 108, they can consume significant storagecapacity. To help reduce storage consumption, an archive operationaccording to certain embodiments creates a secondary copy 116 by bothcopying and removing source data. Or, seen another way, archiveoperations can involve moving some or all of the source data to thearchive destination. Thus, data satisfying criteria for removal (e.g.,data of a threshold age or size) may be removed from source storage. Thesource data may be primary data 112 or a secondary copy 116, dependingon the situation. As with backup copies, archive copies can be stored ina format in which the data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated,and/or otherwise modified from the format of the original application orsource copy. In addition, archive copies may be retained for relativelylong periods of time (e.g., years) and, in some cases, are neverdeleted. Archive copies are generally retained for longer periods oftime than backup copies, for example. In certain embodiments, archivecopies may be made and kept for extended periods in order to meetcompliance regulations.

Moreover, when primary data 112 is archived, in some cases thecorresponding primary data 112 or a portion thereof is deleted whencreating the archive copy. Thus, archiving can serve the purpose offreeing up space in the primary storage device(s) 104 and easing thedemand on computational resources on client computing device 102.Similarly, when a secondary copy 116 is archived, the secondary copy 116may be deleted, and an archive copy can therefore serve the purpose offreeing up space in secondary storage device(s) 108. In contrast, sourcecopies often remain intact when creating backup copies. Examples ofcompatible data archiving operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,107,298, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Snapshot Operations

Snapshot operations can provide a relatively lightweight, efficientmechanism for protecting data. From an end-user viewpoint, a snapshotmay be thought of as an “instant” image of the primary data 112 at agiven point in time, and may include state and/or status informationrelative to an application that creates/manages the primary data 112. Inone embodiment, a snapshot may generally capture the directory structureof an object in primary data 112 such as a file or volume or other dataset at a particular moment in time and may also preserve file attributesand contents. A snapshot in some cases is created relatively quickly,e.g., substantially instantly, using a minimum amount of file space, butmay still function as a conventional file system backup.

A “hardware snapshot” (or “hardware-based snapshot”) operation can be asnapshot operation where a target storage device (e.g., a primarystorage device 104 or a secondary storage device 108) performs thesnapshot operation in a self-contained fashion, substantiallyindependently, using hardware, firmware and/or software operating on thestorage device itself. For instance, the storage device may be capableof performing snapshot operations upon request, generally withoutintervention or oversight from any of the other components in theinformation management system 100. In this manner, hardware snapshotscan off-load other components of information management system 100 fromprocessing involved in snapshot creation and management.

A “software snapshot” (or “software-based snapshot”) operation, on theother hand, can be a snapshot operation in which one or more othercomponents in information management system 100 (e.g., client computingdevices 102, data agents 142, etc.) implement a software layer thatmanages the snapshot operation via interaction with the target storagedevice. For instance, the component executing the snapshot managementsoftware layer may derive a set of pointers and/or data that representsthe snapshot. The snapshot management software layer may then transmitthe same to the target storage device, along with appropriateinstructions for writing the snapshot.

Some types of snapshots do not actually create another physical copy ofall the data as it existed at the particular point in time, but maysimply create pointers that are able to map files and directories tospecific memory locations (e.g., to specific disk blocks) where the dataresides, as it existed at the particular point in time. For example, asnapshot copy may include a set of pointers derived from the file systemor from an application. In some other cases, the snapshot may be createdat the block-level, such that creation of the snapshot occurs withoutawareness of the file system. Each pointer points to a respective storeddata block, so that collectively, the set of pointers reflect thestorage location and state of the data object (e.g., file(s) orvolume(s) or data set(s)) at a particular point in time when thesnapshot copy was created.

An initial snapshot may use only a small amount of disk space needed torecord a mapping or other data structure representing or otherwisetracking the blocks that correspond to the current state of the filesystem. Additional disk space is usually required only when files anddirectories are modified later on. Furthermore, when files are modified,typically only the pointers which map to blocks are copied, not theblocks themselves. In some embodiments, for example in the case of“copy-on-write” snapshots, when a block changes in primary storage, theblock is copied to secondary storage or cached in primary storage beforethe block is overwritten in primary storage, and the pointer to thatblock is changed to reflect the new location of that block. The snapshotmapping of file system data may also be updated to reflect the changedblock(s) at that particular point in time. In some other cases, asnapshot includes a full physical copy of all or substantially all ofthe data represented by the snapshot. Further examples of snapshotoperations are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, which isincorporated by reference herein.

A snapshot copy in many cases can be made quickly and withoutsignificantly impacting primary computing resources because largeamounts of data need not be copied or moved. In some embodiments, asnapshot may exist as a virtual file system, parallel to the actual filesystem. Users in some cases gain read-only access to the record of filesand directories of the snapshot. By electing to restore primary data 112from a snapshot taken at a given point in time, users may also returnthe current file system to the state of the file system that existedwhen the snapshot was taken.

Replication Operations

Another type of secondary copy operation is a replication operation.Some types of secondary copies 116 are used to periodically captureimages of primary data 112 at particular points in time (e.g., backups,archives, and snapshots). However, it can also be useful for recoverypurposes to protect primary data 112 in a more continuous fashion, byreplicating the primary data 112 substantially as changes occur. In somecases a replication copy can be a mirror copy, for instance, wherechanges made to primary data 112 are mirrored or substantiallyimmediately copied to another location (e.g., to secondary storagedevice(s) 108). By copying each write operation to the replication copy,two storage systems are kept synchronized or substantially synchronizedso that they are virtually identical at approximately the same time.Where entire disk volumes are mirrored, however, mirroring can requiresignificant amount of storage space and utilizes a large amount ofprocessing resources.

According to some embodiments storage operations are performed onreplicated data that represents a recoverable state, or “known goodstate” of a particular application running on the source system. Forinstance, in certain embodiments, known good replication copies may beviewed as copies of primary data 112. This feature allows the system todirectly access, copy, restore, backup or otherwise manipulate thereplication copies as if the data were the “live” primary data 112. Thiscan reduce access time, storage utilization, and impact on sourceapplications 110, among other benefits. Based on known good stateinformation, the information management system 100 can replicatesections of application data that represent a recoverable state ratherthan rote copying of blocks of data. Examples of compatible replicationoperations (e.g., continuous data replication) are provided in U.S. Pat.No. 7,617,262, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Deduplication/Single-Instancing Operations

Another type of data movement operation is deduplication orsingle-instance storage, which is useful to reduce the amount ofnon-primary data. For instance, some or all of the above-describedsecondary storage operations can involve deduplication in some fashion.New data is read, broken down into portions (e.g., sub-file levelblocks, files, etc.) of a selected granularity, compared with blocksthat are already in secondary storage, and only the new blocks arestored. Blocks that already exist are represented as pointers to thealready stored data.

In order to streamline the comparison process, the informationmanagement system 100 may calculate and/or store signatures (e.g.,hashes or cryptographically unique IDs) corresponding to the individualdata blocks in a database and compare the signatures instead ofcomparing entire data blocks. In some cases, only a single instance ofeach element is stored, and deduplication operations may therefore bereferred to interchangeably as “single-instancing” operations. Dependingon the implementation, however, deduplication or single-instancingoperations can store more than one instance of certain data blocks, butnonetheless significantly reduce data redundancy. Depending on theembodiment, deduplication blocks can be of fixed or variable length.Using variable length blocks can provide enhanced deduplication byresponding to changes in the data stream, but can involve complexprocessing. In some cases, the information management system 100utilizes a technique for dynamically aligning deduplication blocks(e.g., fixed-length blocks) based on changing content in the datastream, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, which is incorporatedby reference herein.

The information management system 100 can perform deduplication in avariety of manners at a variety of locations in the informationmanagement system 100. For instance, in some embodiments, theinformation management system 100 implements “target-side” deduplicationby deduplicating data (e.g., secondary copies 116) stored in thesecondary storage devices 108. In some such cases, the media agents 144are generally configured to manage the deduplication process. Forinstance, one or more of the media agents 144 maintain a correspondingdeduplication database that stores deduplication information (e.g.,datablock signatures). Examples of such a configuration are provided inU.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, which is incorporated by referenceherein. Instead of or in combination with “target-side” deduplication,deduplication can also be performed on the “source-side” (or“client-side”), e.g., to reduce the amount of traffic between the mediaagents 144 and the client computing device(s) 102 and/or reduceredundant data stored in the primary storage devices 104. According tovarious implementations, one or more of the storage devices of thetarget-side and/or source-side of an operation can be cloud-basedstorage devices. Thus, the target-side and/or source-side deduplicationcan be cloud-based deduplication. In particular, as discussedpreviously, the storage manager 140 may communicate with othercomponents within the information management system 100 via networkprotocols and cloud service provider APIs to facilitate cloud-baseddeduplication/single instancing. Examples of such deduplicationtechniques are provided in U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150818, which isincorporated by reference herein. Some other compatiblededuplication/single instancing techniques are described in U.S. Pat.Pub. Nos. 2006/0224846 and 2009/0319534, which are incorporated byreference herein.

Information Lifecycle Management and Hierarchical Storage ManagementOperations

In some embodiments, files and other data over their lifetime move frommore expensive, quick access storage to less expensive, slower accessstorage. Operations associated with moving data through various tiers ofstorage are sometimes referred to as information lifecycle management(ILM) operations.

One type of ILM operation is a hierarchical storage management (HSM)operation. A HSM operation is generally an operation for automaticallymoving data between classes of storage devices, such as betweenhigh-cost and low-cost storage devices. For instance, an HSM operationmay involve movement of data from primary storage devices 104 tosecondary storage devices 108, or between tiers of secondary storagedevices 108. With each tier, the storage devices may be progressivelyrelatively cheaper, have relatively slower access/restore times, etc.For example, movement of data between tiers may occur as data becomesless important over time.

In some embodiments, an HSM operation is similar to an archive operationin that creating an HSM copy may (though not always) involve deletingsome of the source data, e.g., according to one or more criteria relatedto the source data. For example, an HSM copy may include data fromprimary data 112 or a secondary copy 116 that is larger than a givensize threshold or older than a given age threshold and that is stored ina backup format.

Often, and unlike some types of archive copies, HSM data that is removedor aged from the source is replaced by a logical reference pointer orstub. The reference pointer or stub can be stored in the primary storagedevice 104 (or other source storage device, such as a secondary storagedevice 108) to replace the deleted source data and to point to orotherwise indicate the new location in a secondary storage device 108.

According to one example, files are generally moved between higher andlower cost storage depending on how often the files are accessed. When auser requests access to the HSM data that has been removed or migrated,the information management system 100 uses the stub to locate the dataand may make recovery of the data appear transparent, even though theHSM data may be stored at a location different from other source data.In this manner, the data appears to the user (e.g., in file systembrowsing windows and the like) as if it still resides in the sourcelocation (e.g., in a primary storage device 104). The stub may alsoinclude some metadata associated with the corresponding data, so that afile system and/or application can provide some information about thedata object and/or a limited-functionality version (e.g., a preview) ofthe data object.

An HSM copy may be stored in a format other than the native applicationformat (e.g., where the data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated,and/or otherwise modified from the original native application format).In some cases, copies which involve the removal of data from sourcestorage and the maintenance of stub or other logical referenceinformation on source storage may be referred to generally as “on-linearchive copies”. On the other hand, copies which involve the removal ofdata from source storage without the maintenance of stub or otherlogical reference information on source storage may be referred to as“off-line archive copies”. Examples of HSM and ILM techniques areprovided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by referenceherein.

Auxiliary Copy and Disaster Recovery Operations

An auxiliary copy is generally a copy operation in which a copy iscreated of an existing secondary copy 116. For instance, an initialsecondary copy 116 may be generated using or otherwise be derived fromprimary data 112 (or other data residing in the secondary storagesubsystem 118), whereas an auxiliary copy is generated from the initialsecondary copy 116. Auxiliary copies can be used to create additionalstandby copies of data and may reside on different secondary storagedevices 108 than the initial secondary copies 116. Thus, auxiliarycopies can be used for recovery purposes if initial secondary copies 116become unavailable. Exemplary compatible auxiliary copy techniques aredescribed in further detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, which isincorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 100 may also perform disaster recoveryoperations that make or retain disaster recovery copies, often assecondary, high-availability disk copies. The information managementsystem 100 may create secondary disk copies and store the copies atdisaster recovery locations using auxiliary copy or replicationoperations, such as continuous data replication technologies. Dependingon the particular data protection goals, disaster recovery locations canbe remote from the client computing devices 102 and primary storagedevices 104, remote from some or all of the secondary storage devices108, or both.

Data Analysis, Reporting, and Management Operations

Data analysis, reporting, and management operations can be differentthan data movement operations in that they do not necessarily involvethe copying, migration or other transfer of data (e.g., primary data 112or secondary copies 116) between different locations in the system. Forinstance, data analysis operations may involve processing (e.g., offlineprocessing) or modification of already stored primary data 112 and/orsecondary copies 116. However, in some embodiments data analysisoperations are performed in conjunction with data movement operations.Some data analysis operations include content indexing operations andclassification operations which can be useful in leveraging the dataunder management to provide enhanced search and other features. Otherdata analysis operations such as compression and encryption can providedata reduction and security benefits, respectively.

Classification Operations/Content Indexing

In some embodiments, the information management system 100 analyzes andindexes characteristics, content, and metadata associated with theprimary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116. The content indexing canbe used to identify files or other data objects having pre-definedcontent (e.g., user-defined keywords or phrases, other keywords/phrasesthat are not defined by a user, etc.), and/or metadata (e.g., emailmetadata such as “to”, “from”, “cc”, “bcc”, attachment name, receivedtime, etc.).

The information management system 100 generally organizes and cataloguesthe results in a content index, which may be stored within the mediaagent database 152, for example. The content index can also include thestorage locations of (or pointer references to) the indexed data in theprimary data 112 or secondary copies 116, as appropriate. The resultsmay also be stored, in the form of a content index database orotherwise, elsewhere in the information management system 100 (e.g., inthe primary storage devices 104, or in the secondary storage device108). Such index data provides the storage manager 140 or anothercomponent with an efficient mechanism for locating primary data 112and/or secondary copies 116 of data objects that match particularcriteria.

For instance, search criteria can be specified by a user through userinterface 158 of the storage manager 140. In some cases, the informationmanagement system 100 analyzes data and/or metadata in secondary copies116 to create an “off-line” content index, without significantlyimpacting the performance of the client computing devices 102. Dependingon the embodiment, the system can also implement “on-line” contentindexing, e.g., of primary data 112. Examples of compatible contentindexing techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, which isincorporated by reference herein.

One or more components can be configured to scan data and/or associatedmetadata for classification purposes to populate a database (or otherdata structure) of information, which can be referred to as a “dataclassification database” or a “metabase”. Depending on the embodiment,the data classification database(s) can be organized in a variety ofdifferent ways, including centralization, logical sub-divisions, and/orphysical sub-divisions. For instance, one or more centralized dataclassification databases may be associated with different subsystems ortiers within the information management system 100. As an example, theremay be a first centralized metabase associated with the primary storagesubsystem 117 and a second centralized metabase associated with thesecondary storage subsystem 118. In other cases, there may be one ormore metabases associated with individual components, e.g., clientcomputing devices 102 and/or media agents 144. In some embodiments, adata classification database (metabase) may reside as one or more datastructures within management database 146, or may be otherwiseassociated with storage manager 140.

In some cases, the metabase(s) may be included in separate database(s)and/or on separate storage device(s) from primary data 112 and/orsecondary copies 116, such that operations related to the metabase donot significantly impact performance on other components in theinformation management system 100. In other cases, the metabase(s) maybe stored along with primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116. Filesor other data objects can be associated with identifiers (e.g., tagentries, etc.) in the media agent 144 (or other indices) to facilitatesearches of stored data objects. Among a number of other benefits, themetabase can also allow efficient, automatic identification of files orother data objects to associate with secondary copy or other informationmanagement operations (e.g., in lieu of scanning an entire file system).Examples of compatible metabases and data classification operations areprovided in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,229,954 and 7,747,579, which areincorporated by reference herein.

Encryption Operations

The information management system 100 in some cases is configured toprocess data (e.g., files or other data objects, secondary copies 116,etc.), according to an appropriate encryption algorithm (e.g., Blowfish,Advanced Encryption Standard [AES], Triple Data Encryption Standard[3-DES], etc.) to limit access and provide data security in theinformation management system 100. The information management system 100in some cases encrypts the data at the client level, such that theclient computing devices 102 (e.g., the data agents 142) encrypt thedata prior to forwarding the data to other components, e.g., beforesending the data to media agents 144 during a secondary copy operation.In such cases, the client computing device 102 may maintain or haveaccess to an encryption key or passphrase for decrypting the data uponrestore. Encryption can also occur when creating copies of secondarycopies, e.g., when creating auxiliary copies or archive copies. In yetfurther embodiments, the secondary storage devices 108 can implementbuilt-in, high performance hardware encryption.

Management and Reporting Operations

Certain embodiments leverage the integrated, ubiquitous nature of theinformation management system 100 to provide useful system-widemanagement and reporting functions. Examples of some compatiblemanagement and reporting techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Operations management can generally include monitoring and managing thehealth and performance of information management system 100 by, withoutlimitation, performing error tracking, generating granularstorage/performance metrics (e.g., job success/failure information,deduplication efficiency, etc.), generating storage modeling and costinginformation, and the like. As an example, a storage manager 140 or othercomponent in the information management system 100 may analyze trafficpatterns and suggest and/or automatically route data via a particularroute to minimize congestion. In some embodiments, the system cangenerate predictions relating to storage operations or storage operationinformation. Such predictions, which may be based on a trendinganalysis, may predict various network operations or resource usage, suchas network traffic levels, storage media use, use of bandwidth ofcommunication links, use of media agent components, etc. Furtherexamples of traffic analysis, trend analysis, prediction generation, andthe like are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporatedby reference herein.

In some configurations, a master storage manager 140 may track thestatus of storage operation cells in a hierarchy, such as the status ofjobs, system components, system resources, and other items, bycommunicating with storage managers 140 (or other components) in therespective storage operation cells. Moreover, the master storage manager140 may track the status of its associated storage operation cells andinformation management operations by receiving periodic status updatesfrom the storage managers 140 (or other components) in the respectivecells regarding jobs, system components, system resources, and otheritems. In some embodiments, a master storage manager 140 may storestatus information and other information regarding its associatedstorage operation cells and other system information in its index 150(or other location).

The master storage manager 140 or other component may also determinewhether certain storage-related criteria or other criteria aresatisfied, and perform an action or trigger event (e.g., data migration)in response to the criteria being satisfied, such as where a storagethreshold is met for a particular volume, or where inadequate protectionexists for certain data. For instance, in some embodiments, data fromone or more storage operation cells is used to dynamically andautomatically mitigate recognized risks, and/or to advise users of risksor suggest actions to mitigate these risks. For example, an informationmanagement policy may specify certain requirements (e.g., that a storagedevice should maintain a certain amount of free space, that secondarycopies should occur at a particular interval, that data should be agedand migrated to other storage after a particular period, that data on asecondary volume should always have a certain level of availability andbe restorable within a given time period, that data on a secondaryvolume may be mirrored or otherwise migrated to a specified number ofother volumes, etc.). If a risk condition or other criterion istriggered, the system may notify the user of these conditions and maysuggest (or automatically implement) an action to mitigate or otherwiseaddress the risk. For example, the system may indicate that data from aprimary copy 112 should be migrated to a secondary storage device 108 tofree space on the primary storage device 104. Examples of the use ofrisk factors and other triggering criteria are described in U.S. Pat.No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

In some embodiments, the system 100 may also determine whether a metricor other indication satisfies particular storage criteria and, if so,perform an action. For example, as previously described, a storagepolicy or other definition might indicate that a storage manager 140should initiate a particular action if a storage metric or otherindication drops below or otherwise fails to satisfy specified criteriasuch as a threshold of data protection. Examples of such metrics aredescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by referenceherein.

In some embodiments, risk factors may be quantified into certainmeasurable service or risk levels for ease of comprehension. Forexample, certain applications and associated data may be considered tobe more important by an enterprise than other data and services.Financial compliance data, for example, may be of greater importancethan marketing materials, etc. Network administrators may assignpriority values or “weights” to certain data and/or applications,corresponding to the relative importance. The level of compliance ofstorage operations specified for these applications may also be assigneda certain value. Thus, the health, impact, and overall importance of aservice may be determined, such as by measuring the compliance value andcalculating the product of the priority value and the compliance valueto determine the “service level” and comparing it to certain operationalthresholds to determine whether it is acceptable. Further examples ofthe service level determination are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453,which is incorporated by reference herein.

The system 100 may additionally calculate data costing and dataavailability associated with information management operation cellsaccording to an embodiment of the invention. For instance, data receivedfrom the cell may be used in conjunction with hardware-relatedinformation and other information about system elements to determine thecost of storage and/or the availability of particular data in thesystem. Exemplary information generated could include how fast aparticular department is using up available storage space, how long datawould take to recover over a particular system pathway from a particularsecondary storage device, costs over time, etc. Moreover, in someembodiments, such information may be used to determine or predict theoverall cost associated with the storage of certain information. Thecost associated with hosting a certain application may be based, atleast in part, on the type of media on which the data resides, forexample. Storage devices may be assigned to a particular costcategories, for example. Further examples of costing techniques aredescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by referenceherein.

Any of the above types of information (e.g., information related totrending, predictions, job, cell or component status, risk, servicelevel, costing, etc.) can generally be provided to users via the userinterface 158 in a single, integrated view or console (not shown). Theconsole may support a reporting capability that allows for thegeneration of a variety of reports, which may be tailored to aparticular aspect of information management. Report types may include:scheduling, event management, media management and data aging. Availablereports may also include backup history, data aging history, auxiliarycopy history, job history, library and drive, media in library, restorehistory, and storage policy, etc., without limitation. Such reports maybe specified and created at a certain point in time as a systemanalysis, forecasting, or provisioning tool. Integrated reports may alsobe generated that illustrate storage and performance metrics, risks andstorage costing information. Moreover, users may create their ownreports based on specific needs.

The integrated user interface 158 can include an option to show a“virtual view” of the system that graphically depicts the variouscomponents in the system using appropriate icons. As one example, theuser interface 158 may provide a graphical depiction of one or moreprimary storage devices 104, the secondary storage devices 108, dataagents 142 and/or media agents 144, and their relationship to oneanother in the information management system 100. The operationsmanagement functionality can facilitate planning and decision-making.For example, in some embodiments, a user may view the status of some orall jobs as well as the status of each component of the informationmanagement system 100. Users may then plan and make decisions based onthis data. For instance, a user may view high-level informationregarding storage operations for the information management system 100,such as job status, component status, resource status (e.g.,communication pathways, etc.), and other information. The user may alsodrill down or use other means to obtain more detailed informationregarding a particular component, job, or the like. Further examples ofsome reporting techniques and associated interfaces providing anintegrated view of an information management system are provided in U.S.Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 100 can also be configured to performsystem-wide e-discovery operations in some embodiments. In general,e-discovery operations provide a unified collection and searchcapability for data in the system, such as data stored in the secondarystorage devices 108 (e.g., backups, archives, or other secondary copies116). For example, the information management system 100 may constructand maintain a virtual repository for data stored in the informationmanagement system 100 that is integrated across source applications 110,different storage device types, etc. According to some embodiments,e-discovery utilizes other techniques described herein, such as dataclassification and/or content indexing.

Information Management Policies

As indicated previously, an information management policy 148 caninclude a data structure or other information source that specifies aset of parameters (e.g., criteria and rules) associated with secondarycopy and/or other information management operations.

One type of information management policy 148 is a storage policy.According to certain embodiments, a storage policy generally comprises adata structure or other information source that defines (or includesinformation sufficient to determine) a set of preferences or othercriteria for performing information management operations. Storagepolicies can include one or more of the following items: (1) what datawill be associated with the storage policy; (2) a destination to whichthe data will be stored; (3) datapath information specifying how thedata will be communicated to the destination; (4) the type of storageoperation to be performed; and (5) retention information specifying howlong the data will be retained at the destination (see, e.g., FIG. 1E).

As an illustrative example, data associated with a storage policy can belogically organized into groups. In some cases, these logical groupingscan be referred to as “sub-clients”. A sub-client may represent staticor dynamic associations of portions of a data volume. Sub-clients mayrepresent mutually exclusive portions. Thus, in certain embodiments, aportion of data may be given a label and the association is stored as astatic entity in an index, database or other storage location.Sub-clients may also be used as an effective administrative scheme oforganizing data according to data type, department within theenterprise, storage preferences, or the like. Depending on theconfiguration, sub-clients can correspond to files, folders, virtualmachines, databases, etc. In one exemplary scenario, an administratormay find it preferable to separate e-mail data from financial data usingtwo different sub-clients.

A storage policy can define where data is stored by specifying a targetor destination storage device (or group of storage devices). Forinstance, where the secondary storage device 108 includes a group ofdisk libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular disk libraryfor storing the sub-clients associated with the policy. As anotherexample, where the secondary storage devices 108 include one or moretape libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular tape libraryfor storing the sub-clients associated with the storage policy, and mayalso specify a drive pool and a tape pool defining a group of tapedrives and a group of tapes, respectively, for use in storing thesub-client data. While information in the storage policy can bestatically assigned in some cases, some or all of the information in thestorage policy can also be dynamically determined based on criteria,which can be set forth in the storage policy. For instance, based onsuch criteria, a particular destination storage device(s) (or otherparameter of the storage policy) may be determined based oncharacteristics associated with the data involved in a particularstorage operation, device availability (e.g., availability of asecondary storage device 108 or a media agent 144), network status andconditions (e.g., identified bottlenecks), user credentials, and thelike).

Datapath information can also be included in the storage policy. Forinstance, the storage policy may specify network pathways and componentsto utilize when moving the data to the destination storage device(s). Insome embodiments, the storage policy specifies one or more media agents144 for conveying data associated with the storage policy between thesource (e.g., one or more host client computing devices 102) anddestination (e.g., a particular target secondary storage device 108).

A storage policy can also specify the type(s) of operations associatedwith the storage policy, such as a backup, archive, snapshot, auxiliarycopy, or the like. Retention information can specify how long the datawill be kept, depending on organizational needs (e.g., a number of days,months, years, etc.)

Another type of information management policy 148 is a schedulingpolicy, which specifies when and how often to perform operations.Scheduling parameters may specify with what frequency (e.g., hourly,weekly, daily, event-based, etc.) or under what triggering conditionssecondary copy or other information management operations will takeplace. Scheduling policies in some cases are associated with particularcomponents, such as particular logical groupings of data associated witha storage policy (e.g., a sub-client), client computing device 102, andthe like. In one configuration, a separate scheduling policy ismaintained for particular logical groupings of data on a clientcomputing device 102. The scheduling policy specifies that those logicalgroupings are to be moved to secondary storage devices 108 every houraccording to storage policies associated with the respectivesub-clients.

When adding a new client computing device 102, administrators canmanually configure information management policies 148 and/or othersettings, e.g., via the user interface 158. However, this can be aninvolved process resulting in delays, and it may be desirable to begindata protection operations quickly, without awaiting human intervention.Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system 100automatically applies a default configuration to client computing device102. As one example, when one or more data agent(s) 142 are installed onone or more client computing devices 102, the installation script mayregister the client computing device 102 with the storage manager 140,which in turn applies the default configuration to the new clientcomputing device 102. In this manner, data protection operations canbegin substantially immediately. The default configuration can include adefault storage policy, for example, and can specify any appropriateinformation sufficient to begin data protection operations. This caninclude a type of data protection operation, scheduling information, atarget secondary storage device 108, data path information (e.g., aparticular media agent 144), and the like.

Other types of information management policies 148 are possible,including one or more audit (or security) policies. An audit policy is aset of preferences, rules and/or criteria that protect sensitive data inthe information management system 100. For example, an audit policy maydefine “sensitive objects” as files or objects that contain particularkeywords (e.g., “confidential,” or “privileged”) and/or are associatedwith particular keywords (e.g., in metadata) or particular flags (e.g.,in metadata identifying a document or email as personal, confidential,etc.). An audit policy may further specify rules for handling sensitiveobjects. As an example, an audit policy may require that a reviewerapprove the transfer of any sensitive objects to a cloud storage site,and that if approval is denied for a particular sensitive object, thesensitive object should be transferred to a local primary storage device104 instead. To facilitate this approval, the audit policy may furtherspecify how a secondary storage computing device 106 or other systemcomponent should notify a reviewer that a sensitive object is slated fortransfer.

Another type of information management policy 148 is a provisioningpolicy. A provisioning policy can include a set of preferences,priorities, rules, and/or criteria that specify how client computingdevices 102 (or groups thereof) may utilize system resources, such asavailable storage on cloud storage and/or network bandwidth. Aprovisioning policy specifies, for example, data quotas for particularclient computing devices 102 (e.g., a number of gigabytes that can bestored monthly, quarterly or annually). The storage manager 140 or othercomponents may enforce the provisioning policy. For instance, the mediaagents 144 may enforce the policy when transferring data to secondarystorage devices 108. If a client computing device 102 exceeds a quota, abudget for the client computing device 102 (or associated department) isadjusted accordingly or an alert may trigger.

While the above types of information management policies 148 have beendescribed as separate policies, one or more of these can be generallycombined into a single information management policy 148. For instance,a storage policy may also include or otherwise be associated with one ormore scheduling, audit, or provisioning policies or operationalparameters thereof. Moreover, while storage policies are typicallyassociated with moving and storing data, other policies may beassociated with other types of information management operations. Thefollowing is a non-exhaustive list of items the information managementpolicies 148 may specify:

-   -   schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when        and/or how often to perform information management operations;    -   the type of copy 116 (e.g., type of secondary copy) and/or copy        format (e.g., snapshot, backup, archive, HSM, etc.);    -   a location or a class or quality of storage for storing        secondary copies 116 (e.g., one or more particular secondary        storage devices 108);    -   preferences regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress,        deduplicate, or otherwise modify or transform secondary copies        116;    -   which system components and/or network pathways (e.g., preferred        media agents 144) should be used to perform secondary storage        operations;    -   resource allocation among different computing devices or other        system components used in performing information management        operations (e.g., bandwidth allocation, available storage        capacity, etc.);    -   whether and how to synchronize or otherwise distribute files or        other data objects across multiple computing devices or hosted        services; and    -   retention information specifying the length of time primary data        112 and/or secondary copies 116 should be retained, e.g., in a        particular class or tier of storage devices, or within the        information management system 100.

Policies can additionally specify or depend on a variety of historicalor current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to applyto a particular data object, system component, or information managementoperation, such as:

-   -   frequency with which primary data 112 or a secondary copy 116 of        a data object or metadata has been or is predicted to be used,        accessed, or modified;    -   time-related factors (e.g., aging information such as time since        the creation or modification of a data object);    -   deduplication information (e.g., hashes, data blocks,        deduplication block size, deduplication efficiency or other        metrics);    -   an estimated or historic usage or cost associated with different        components (e.g., with secondary storage devices 108);    -   the identity of users, applications 110, client computing        devices 102 and/or other computing devices that created,        accessed, modified, or otherwise utilized primary data 112 or        secondary copies 116;    -   a relative sensitivity (e.g., confidentiality, importance) of a        data object, e.g., as determined by its content and/or metadata;    -   the current or historical storage capacity of various storage        devices;    -   the current or historical network capacity of network pathways        connecting various components within the storage operation cell;    -   access control lists or other security information; and    -   the content of a particular data object (e.g., its textual        content) or of metadata associated with the data object.

Exemplary Storage Policy and Secondary Storage Operations

FIG. 1E includes a data flow diagram depicting performance of storageoperations by an embodiment of an information management system 100,according to an exemplary storage policy 148A. The informationmanagement system 100 includes a storage manger 140, a client computingdevice 102 having a file system data agent 142A and an email data agent142B operating thereon, a primary storage device 104, two media agents144A, 144B, and two secondary storage devices 108A, 108B: a disk library108A and a tape library 108B. As shown, the primary storage device 104includes primary data 112A, which is associated with a logical groupingof data associated with a file system, and primary data 1128, which isassociated with a logical grouping of data associated with email.Although for simplicity the logical grouping of data associated with thefile system is referred to as a file system sub-client, and the logicalgrouping of data associated with the email is referred to as an emailsub-client, the techniques described with respect to FIG. 1E can beutilized in conjunction with data that is organized in a variety ofother manners.

As indicated by the dashed box, the second media agent 144B and the tapelibrary 108B are “off-site”, and may therefore be remotely located fromthe other components in the information management system 100 (e.g., ina different city, office building, etc.). Indeed, “off-site” may referto a magnetic tape located in storage, which must be manually retrievedand loaded into a tape drive to be read. In this manner, informationstored on the tape library 108B may provide protection in the event of adisaster or other failure.

The file system sub-client and its associated primary data 112A incertain embodiments generally comprise information generated by the filesystem and/or operating system of the client computing device 102, andcan include, for example, file system data (e.g., regular files, filetables, mount points, etc.), operating system data (e.g., registries,event logs, etc.), and the like. The e-mail sub-client, on the otherhand, and its associated primary data 1128, include data generated by ane-mail application operating on the client computing device 102, and caninclude mailbox information, folder information, emails, attachments,associated database information, and the like. As described above, thesub-clients can be logical containers, and the data included in thecorresponding primary data 112A, 1128 may or may not be storedcontiguously.

The exemplary storage policy 148A includes backup copy preferences (orrule set) 160, disaster recovery copy preferences rule set 162, andcompliance copy preferences or rule set 164. The backup copy rule set160 specifies that it is associated with a file system sub-client 166and an email sub-client 168. Each of these sub-clients 166, 168 areassociated with the particular client computing device 102. The backupcopy rule set 160 further specifies that the backup operation will bewritten to the disk library 108A, and designates a particular mediaagent 144A to convey the data to the disk library 108A. Finally, thebackup copy rule set 160 specifies that backup copies created accordingto the rule set 160 are scheduled to be generated on an hourly basis andto be retained for 30 days. In some other embodiments, schedulinginformation is not included in the storage policy 148A, and is insteadspecified by a separate scheduling policy.

The disaster recovery copy rule set 162 is associated with the same twosub-clients 166, 168. However, the disaster recovery copy rule set 162is associated with the tape library 108B, unlike the backup copy ruleset 160. Moreover, the disaster recovery copy rule set 162 specifiesthat a different media agent, namely 144B, will be used to convey thedata to the tape library 108B. As indicated, disaster recovery copiescreated according to the rule set 162 will be retained for 60 days, andwill be generated on a daily basis. Disaster recovery copies generatedaccording to the disaster recovery copy rule set 162 can provideprotection in the event of a disaster or other catastrophic data lossthat would affect the backup copy 116A maintained on the disk library108A.

The compliance copy rule set 164 is only associated with the emailsub-client 168, and not the file system sub-client 166. Compliancecopies generated according to the compliance copy rule set 164 willtherefore not include primary data 112A from the file system sub-client166. For instance, the organization may be under an obligation to storeand maintain copies of email data for a particular period of time (e.g.,10 years) to comply with state or federal regulations, while similarregulations do not apply to the file system data. The compliance copyrule set 164 is associated with the same tape library 108B and mediaagent 144B as the disaster recovery copy rule set 162, although adifferent storage device or media agent could be used in otherembodiments. Finally, the compliance copy rule set 164 specifies thatcopies generated under the compliance copy rule set 164 will be retainedfor 10 years, and will be generated on a quarterly basis.

At step 1, the storage manager 140 initiates a backup operationaccording to the backup copy rule set 160. For instance, a schedulingservice running on the storage manager 140 accesses schedulinginformation from the backup copy rule set 160 or a separate schedulingpolicy associated with the client computing device 102, and initiates abackup copy operation on an hourly basis. Thus, at the scheduled timeslot the storage manager 140 sends instructions to the client computingdevice 102 (i.e., to both data agent 142A and data agent 142B) to beginthe backup operation.

At step 2, the file system data agent 142A and the email data agent 142Boperating on the client computing device 102 respond to the instructionsreceived from the storage manager 140 by accessing and processing theprimary data 112A, 112B involved in the copy operation, which can befound in primary storage device 104. Because the operation is a backupcopy operation, the data agent(s) 142A, 142B may format the data into abackup format or otherwise process the data.

At step 3, the client computing device 102 communicates the retrieved,processed data to the first media agent 144A, as directed by the storagemanager 140, according to the backup copy rule set 160. In some otherembodiments, the information management system 100 may implement aload-balancing, availability-based, or other appropriate algorithm toselect from the available set of media agents 144A, 144B. Regardless ofthe manner the media agent 144A is selected, the storage manager 140 mayfurther keep a record in the storage manager database 146 of theassociation between the selected media agent 144A and the clientcomputing device 102 and/or between the selected media agent 144A andthe backup copy 116A.

The target media agent 144A receives the data from the client computingdevice 102, and at step 4 conveys the data to the disk library 108A tocreate the backup copy 116A, again at the direction of the storagemanager 140 and according to the backup copy rule set 160. The secondarystorage device 108A can be selected in other ways. For instance, themedia agent 144A may have a dedicated association with a particularsecondary storage device(s), or the storage manager 140 or media agent144A may select from a plurality of secondary storage devices, e.g.,according to availability, using one of the techniques described in U.S.Pat. No. 7,246,207, which is incorporated by reference herein.

The media agent 144A can also update its index 153 to include dataand/or metadata related to the backup copy 116A, such as informationindicating where the backup copy 116A resides on the disk library 108A,data and metadata for cache retrieval, etc. The storage manager 140 maysimilarly update its index 150 to include information relating to thestorage operation, such as information relating to the type of storageoperation, a physical location associated with one or more copiescreated by the storage operation, the time the storage operation wasperformed, status information relating to the storage operation, thecomponents involved in the storage operation, and the like. In somecases, the storage manager 140 may update its index 150 to include someor all of the information stored in the index 153 of the media agent144A. After the 30 day retention period expires, the storage manager 140instructs the media agent 144A to delete the backup copy 116A from thedisk library 108A. Indexes 150 and/or 153 are updated accordingly.

At step 5, the storage manager 140 initiates the creation of a disasterrecovery copy 1168 according to the disaster recovery copy rule set 162.

At step 6, illustratively based on the instructions received from thestorage manager 140 at step 5, the specified media agent 144B retrievesthe most recent backup copy 116A from the disk library 108A.

At step 7, again at the direction of the storage manager 140 and asspecified in the disaster recovery copy rule set 162, the media agent144B uses the retrieved data to create a disaster recovery copy 1168 onthe tape library 108B. In some cases, the disaster recovery copy 1168 isa direct, mirror copy of the backup copy 116A, and remains in the backupformat. In other embodiments, the disaster recovery copy 1168 may begenerated in some other manner, such as by using the primary data 112A,1128 from the primary storage device 104 as source data. The disasterrecovery copy operation is initiated once a day and the disasterrecovery copies 1168 are deleted after 60 days; indexes are updatedaccordingly when/after each information management operation isexecuted/completed.

At step 8, the storage manager 140 initiates the creation of acompliance copy 116C, according to the compliance copy rule set 164. Forinstance, the storage manager 140 instructs the media agent 144B tocreate the compliance copy 116C on the tape library 108B at step 9, asspecified in the compliance copy rule set 164. In the example, thecompliance copy 116C is generated using the disaster recovery copy 1168.In other embodiments, the compliance copy 116C is instead generatedusing either the primary data 1128 corresponding to the email sub-clientor using the backup copy 116A from the disk library 108A as source data.As specified, in the illustrated example, compliance copies 116C arecreated quarterly, and are deleted after ten years, and indexes are keptup-to-date accordingly.

While not shown in FIG. 1E, at some later point in time, a restoreoperation can be initiated involving one or more of the secondary copies116A, 1168, 116C. As one example, a user may manually initiate a restoreof the backup copy 116A by interacting with the user interface 158 ofthe storage manager 140. The storage manager 140 then accesses data inits index 150 (and/or the respective storage policy 148A) associatedwith the selected backup copy 116A to identify the appropriate mediaagent 144A and/or secondary storage device 108A.

In other cases, a media agent may be selected for use in the restoreoperation based on a load balancing algorithm, an availability basedalgorithm, or other criteria. The selected media agent 144A retrievesthe data from the disk library 108A. For instance, the media agent 144Amay access its index 153 to identify a location of the backup copy 116Aon the disk library 108A, or may access location information residing onthe disk 108A itself.

When the backup copy 116A was recently created or accessed, the mediaagent 144A accesses a cached version of the backup copy 116A residing inthe index 153, without having to access the disk library 108A for someor all of the data. Once it has retrieved the backup copy 116A, themedia agent 144A communicates the data to the source client computingdevice 102. Upon receipt, the file system data agent 142A and the emaildata agent 142B may unpackage (e.g., restore from a backup format to thenative application format) the data in the backup copy 116A and restorethe unpackaged data to the primary storage device 104.

Exemplary Applications of Storage Policies

The storage manager 140 may permit a user to specify aspects of thestorage policy 148A. For example, the storage policy can be modified toinclude information governance policies to define how data should bemanaged in order to comply with a certain regulation or businessobjective. The various policies may be stored, for example, in themanagement database 146. An information governance policy may comprise aclassification policy, which is described herein. An informationgovernance policy may align with one or more compliance tasks that areimposed by regulations or business requirements. Examples of informationgovernance policies might include a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, a HIPAApolicy, an electronic discovery (E-Discovery) policy, and so on.

Information governance policies allow administrators to obtain differentperspectives on all of an organization's online and offline data,without the need for a dedicated data silo created solely for eachdifferent viewpoint. As described previously, the data storage systemsherein build a centralized index that reflects the contents of adistributed data set that spans numerous clients and storage devices,including both primary and secondary copies, and online and offlinecopies. An organization may apply multiple information governancepolicies in a top-down manner over that unified data set and indexingschema in order to permit an organization to view and manipulate thesingle data set through different lenses, each of which is adapted to aparticular compliance or business goal. Thus, for example, by applyingan E-discovery policy and a Sarbanes-Oxley policy, two different groupsof users in an organization can conduct two very different analyses ofthe same underlying physical set of data copies, which may bedistributed throughout the organization and information managementsystem.

A classification policy defines a taxonomy of classification terms ortags relevant to a compliance task and/or business objective. Aclassification policy may also associate a defined tag with aclassification rule. A classification rule defines a particularcombination of criteria, such as users who have created, accessed ormodified a document or data object; file or application types; contentor metadata keywords; clients or storage locations; dates of datacreation and/or access; review status or other status within a workflow(e.g., reviewed or un-reviewed); modification times or types ofmodifications; and/or any other data attributes in any combination,without limitation. A classification rule may also be defined usingother classification tags in the taxonomy. The various criteria used todefine a classification rule may be combined in any suitable fashion,for example, via Boolean operators, to define a complex classificationrule. As an example, an E-discovery classification policy might define aclassification tag “privileged” that is associated with documents ordata objects that (1) were created or modified by legal departmentstaff, or (2) were sent to or received from outside counsel via email,or (3) contain one of the following keywords: “privileged” or “attorney”or “counsel”, or other like terms.

One specific type of classification tag, which may be added to an indexat the time of indexing, is an entity tag. An entity tag may be, forexample, any content that matches a defined data mask format. Examplesof entity tags might include, e.g., social security numbers (e.g., anynumerical content matching the formatting mask XXX-XX-XXXX), credit cardnumbers (e.g., content having a 13-16 digit string of numbers), SKUnumbers, product numbers, etc.

A user may define a classification policy by indicating criteria,parameters or descriptors of the policy via a graphical user interface,such as a form or page with fields to be filled in, pull-down menus orentries allowing one or more of several options to be selected, buttons,sliders, hypertext links or other known user interface tools forreceiving user input, etc. For example, a user may define certain entitytags, such as a particular product number or project ID code that isrelevant in the organization. In some implementations, theclassification policy can be implemented using cloud-based techniques.For example, the storage devices may be cloud storage devices, and thestorage manager 140 may execute cloud service provider API over anetwork to classify data stored on cloud storage devices.

Exemplary Secondary Copy Formatting

The formatting and structure of secondary copies 116 can vary, dependingon the embodiment. In some cases, secondary copies 116 are formatted asa series of logical data units or “chunks” (e.g., 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4GB, or 8 GB chunks). This can facilitate efficient communication andwriting to secondary storage devices 108, e.g., according to resourceavailability. For example, a single secondary copy 116 may be written ona chunk-by-chunk basis to a single secondary storage device 108 oracross multiple secondary storage devices 108. In some cases, users canselect different chunk sizes, e.g., to improve throughput to tapestorage devices.

Generally, each chunk can include a header and a payload. The payloadcan include files (or other data units) or subsets thereof included inthe chunk, whereas the chunk header generally includes metadata relatingto the chunk, some or all of which may be derived from the payload. Forexample, during a secondary copy operation, the media agent 144, storagemanager 140, or other component may divide the associated files intochunks and generate headers for each chunk by processing the constituentfiles. The headers can include a variety of information such as fileidentifier(s), volume(s), offset(s), or other information associatedwith the payload data items, a chunk sequence number, etc. Importantly,in addition to being stored with the secondary copy 116 on the secondarystorage device 108, the chunk headers can also be stored to the index153 of the associated media agent(s) 144 and/or the index 150. This isuseful in some cases for providing faster processing of secondary copies116 during restores or other operations. In some cases, once a chunk issuccessfully transferred to a secondary storage device 108, thesecondary storage device 108 returns an indication of receipt, e.g., tothe media agent 144 and/or storage manager 140, which may update theirrespective indexes 153, 150 accordingly. During restore, chunks may beprocessed (e.g., by the media agent 144) according to the information inthe chunk header to reassemble the files.

Data can also be communicated within the information management system100 in data channels that connect the client computing devices 102 tothe secondary storage devices 108. These data channels can be referredto as “data streams”, and multiple data streams can be employed toparallelize an information management operation, improving data transferrate, among providing other advantages. Example data formattingtechniques including techniques involving data streaming, chunking, andthe use of other data structures in creating copies (e.g., secondarycopies) are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,315,923 and 8,156,086, and8,578,120, each of which is incorporated by reference herein.

FIGS. 1F and 1G are diagrams of example data streams 170 and 171,respectively, which may be employed for performing data storageoperations. Referring to FIG. 1F, the data agent 142 forms the datastream 170 from the data associated with a client computing device 102(e.g., primary data 112). The data stream 170 is composed of multiplepairs of stream header 172 and stream data (or stream payload) 174. Thedata streams 170 and 171 shown in the illustrated example are for asingle-instanced storage operation, and a stream payload 174 thereforemay include both single-instance (“SI”) data and/or non-SI data. Astream header 172 includes metadata about the stream payload 174. Thismetadata may include, for example, a length of the stream payload 174,an indication of whether the stream payload 174 is encrypted, anindication of whether the stream payload 174 is compressed, an archivefile identifier (ID), an indication of whether the stream payload 174 issingle instanceable, and an indication of whether the stream payload 174is a start of a block of data.

Referring to FIG. 1G, the data stream 171 has the stream header 172 andstream payload 174 aligned into multiple data blocks. In this example,the data blocks are of size 64 KB. The first two stream header 172 andstream payload 174 pairs comprise a first data block of size 64 KB. Thefirst stream header 172 indicates that the length of the succeedingstream payload 174 is 63 KB and that it is the start of a data block.The next stream header 172 indicates that the succeeding stream payload174 has a length of 1 KB and that it is not the start of a new datablock. Immediately following stream payload 174 is a pair comprising anidentifier header 176 and identifier data 178. The identifier header 176includes an indication that the succeeding identifier data 178 includesthe identifier for the immediately previous data block. The identifierdata 178 includes the identifier that the data agent 142 generated forthe data block. The data stream 171 also includes other stream header172 and stream payload 174 pairs, which may be for SI data and/or fornon-SI data.

FIG. 1H is a diagram illustrating the data structures 180 that may beused to store blocks of SI data and non-SI data on the storage device(e.g., secondary storage device 108). According to certain embodiments,the data structures 180 do not form part of a native file system of thestorage device. The data structures 180 include one or more volumefolders 182, one or more chunk folders 184/185 within the volume folder182, and multiple files within the chunk folder 184. Each chunk folder184/185 includes a metadata file 186/187, a metadata index file 188/189,one or more container files 190/191/193, and a container index file192/194. The metadata file 186/187 stores non-SI data blocks as well aslinks to SI data blocks stored in container files. The metadata indexfile 188/189 stores an index to the data in the metadata file 186/187.The container files 190/191/193 store SI data blocks. The containerindex file 192/194 stores an index to the container files 190/191/193.Among other things, the container index file 192/194 stores anindication of whether a corresponding block in a container file190/191/193 is referred to by a link in a metadata file 186/187. Forexample, data block B2 in the container file 190 is referred to by alink in the metadata file 187 in the chunk folder 185. Accordingly, thecorresponding index entry in the container index file 192 indicates thatthe data block B2 in the container file 190 is referred to. As anotherexample, data block B1 in the container file 191 is referred to by alink in the metadata file 187, and so the corresponding index entry inthe container index file 192 indicates that this data block is referredto.

As an example, the data structures 180 illustrated in FIG. 1H may havebeen created as a result of two storage operations involving two clientcomputing devices 102. For example, a first storage operation on a firstclient computing device 102 could result in the creation of the firstchunk folder 184, and a second storage operation on a second clientcomputing device 102 could result in the creation of the second chunkfolder 185. The container files 190/191 in the first chunk folder 184would contain the blocks of SI data of the first client computing device102. If the two client computing devices 102 have substantially similardata, the second storage operation on the data of the second clientcomputing device 102 would result in the media agent 144 storingprimarily links to the data blocks of the first client computing device102 that are already stored in the container files 190/191. Accordingly,while a first storage operation may result in storing nearly all of thedata subject to the storage operation, subsequent storage operationsinvolving similar data may result in substantial data storage spacesavings, because links to already stored data blocks can be storedinstead of additional instances of data blocks.

If the operating system of the secondary storage computing device 106 onwhich the media agent 144 operates supports sparse files, then when themedia agent 144 creates container files 190/191/193, it can create themas sparse files. A sparse file is type of file that may include emptyspace (e.g., a sparse file may have real data within it, such as at thebeginning of the file and/or at the end of the file, but may also haveempty space in it that is not storing actual data, such as a contiguousrange of bytes all having a value of zero). Having the container files190/191/193 be sparse files allows the media agent 144 to free up spacein the container files 190/191/193 when blocks of data in the containerfiles 190/191/193 no longer need to be stored on the storage devices. Insome examples, the media agent 144 creates a new container file190/191/193 when a container file 190/191/193 either includes 100 blocksof data or when the size of the container file 190 exceeds 50 MB. Inother examples, the media agent 144 creates a new container file190/191/193 when a container file 190/191/193 satisfies other criteria(e.g., it contains from approximately 100 to approximately 1000 blocksor when its size exceeds approximately 50 MB to 1 GB).

In some cases, a file on which a storage operation is performed maycomprise a large number of data blocks. For example, a 100 MB file maycomprise 400 data blocks of size 256 KB. If such a file is to be stored,its data blocks may span more than one container file, or even more thanone chunk folder. As another example, a database file of 20 GB maycomprise over 40,000 data blocks of size 512 KB. If such a database fileis to be stored, its data blocks will likely span multiple containerfiles, multiple chunk folders, and potentially multiple volume folders.Restoring such files may require accessing multiple container files,chunk folders, and/or volume folders to obtain the requisite datablocks.

Protecting and Restoring Database Data Using Block-Level Mapping

FIG. 2A is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of an exemplary information management system 200configured to implement database backup using block-level mapping,according to certain embodiments. As illustrated, the exemplaryinformation management system 200 includes a storage manager 210, aclient computing device or client 220, an information store or primarystorage device 230, a data agent 240, a database application 260, amedia agent 270, and a secondary storage device or storage device 280.The system 200 and corresponding components of FIG. 2A may be similar toor the same as the system 100 and similarly named (but not necessarilynumbered) components of FIG. 1D.

Moreover, depending on the embodiment, the system 200 of FIG. 2 mayadditionally include any of the other components shown in FIG. 1D thatare not specifically shown in FIG. 2A. The system 200 may include one ormore of each component. All components of the system 200 can be indirect communication with each other or communicate indirectly via theclient 220, the storage manager 210, the media agent 270, or the like.In certain embodiments, some of the components in FIG. 2A shown asseparate components can reside on a single computing device, or viceversa.

In some cases, the system 200 backs up or otherwise protects a databasefile using a block-level backup technique. In some embodiments,block-level backup can refer to image-level backup. The system 200 canrestore a desired database object (e.g., a table) contained in a backedup database file. And, instead of accessing the entire backup file, thesystem 200 restores the desired object by accessing a limited portion ofthe file. As will be discussed in further detail, the system 200 canimplement database backup using a block-level mapping of databaseobjects, thereby allowing a desired database object(s) to be restoredwithout restoring the entire backup database file containing theobject(s). Such a technique can save resources by reducing the amount ofstorage space, processing, time, etc. for restore, for example.

With further reference to FIG. 2A, the interaction between the variouscomponents of the exemplary information management system will now bedescribed in greater detail with respect to data flow steps indicated bythe numbered arrows. Certain details relating to database backup usingblock-level mapping are further explained with respect to FIGS. 2B and2C.

At data flow step 1, the data agent 240 divides the database file 231into granular units or blocks, which can each have the same size. A dataagent 240 may be associated with a database application 260. Forexample, an Oracle data agent may be associated with the Oracle databaseapplication. Examples of database applications 260 can include Oracle,DB2, SQL Server, etc. A database application 260 may store dataassociated with it as one database file or as multiple database files,depending on the embodiment. Database file(s) 231 can be stored in theinformation store 230. To facilitate discussion, FIG. 2A will beexplained in terms of one database file, but as explained above, adatabase application 260 may store its data in multiple files. The dataagent 240 can divide the database into multiple blocks 233 ofappropriate sizes. The block 233 can be different from application-levelblocks which may be delineated and tracked by the database application260 for its own purposes in creating and maintaining the database data.The blocks used by the database application 260 may be referred to asthe “database blocks.” For example, a block 233 can include multipleapplication-level blocks 239. The size of the block 233 can be differentfrom the size of the application-level block 239. In one embodiment, thesize of a block 233 can be 256 kilobytes (kB). In contrast, the size ofthe application-level block 239 may be 2 kB or 4 kB. The size of a block233 by which the database file 231 is divided can be determined based onvarious factors (e.g., size of a read by a database application 260).For example, the size of a block 233 is determined based on the optimalsize for each application 260, for example, as a multiple of the readsize of the application 260. In one embodiment, the size of a block 233is a parameter defined in the parameter file of the database application260, and the database application 260 reads the block size when it isstarted and accesses data in multiples of block size. In someembodiments, a block 233 is also referred to as an extent.

The data agent 240 can divide the database file 231 into blocks 233prior to backup or at the time a backup operation is performed. Thesystem 200 may provide a default size for a block 233, and the dataagent 240 can use the default size. The data agent 240 can also selector determine an appropriate block size and override the default size,based on an algorithm, for example. In some other cases, there areseveral pre-determined options for the size of the block 233, and thedata agent 240 chooses one of the options. The data agent 240 may storethe block size used to divide the database file 231, e.g., inapplication configurations or system configurations.

At data flow step 2, the system 200 creates a backup or other secondarycopy of the database file 231 as the set of blocks 233. For example, thestorage manager 210 can initiate a backup operation and instruct mediaagent(s) 270 to copy the set of blocks 233 to create a backup copy 281of the database file 231. The media agent 270 can copy the blocks 233 tothe storage device 280 and create a secondary copy 281 of the databasefile 231, including the copies 283 of the blocks 233. To facilitatediscussion, copies 283 of the blocks 233 may also be referred to simplyas blocks 283.

The secondary storage device(s) 280 may store secondary copy data as aplurality of backup files (or other types of secondary copy files,depending on the type of secondary copy). Each backup file may includecopies of a number of database files 231 and/or copies of other types offiles as well as metadata, such as is discussed in further detail above,such as with respect to FIGS. 1F-1H, and below with respect to FIG. 2D.For instance, the data agent(s) 240 and/or media agent(s) 270 maypackage the backup files together according to a backup format. In someembodiments, each backup file has a unique identifier associatedtherewith, which can be called a “backup file ID”. And locations withinan individual backup file can be identified with an offset value, whichcan be called a “backup file offset.” Backup files, backup file IDs, andbackup file offsets are discussed in further detail below with respectto FIG. 2D.

Each of the blocks 283 of the database backup file 281 will be stored ina particular backup file in the secondary storage device 280, and themedia agent 270 can have a backup file ID and a backup file offsetassociated with it that is used to locate the block 283 in secondarystorage. The backup copy 281 of the database file 231 can be stored inthe native format of the database application 260, within the backupfile. To facilitate discussion, a backup copy 281 of the database file231 may also be referred to as a backup database file 281.

Backup may run according to any of the techniques described herein, suchas according to a schedule defined by a storage policy, at user request,based on certain events, etc. In some embodiments, the system 200 mayprovide the block-level mapping backup feature as an option duringbackup. For example, the system administrator may select backup usingblock-level mapping as one of the backup parameters.

At data flow step 3, the media agent 270 creates an index or table 277that maps blocks and corresponding locations in secondary storage. Themedia agent 270 can keep track of where the copies 283 of the blocks 233are stored in secondary storage. For example, the media agent 270 has atable 277 of block locations in the media agent index 275. The table 277can indicate the storage device 280 and/or location for each block 283in secondary storage.

In one embodiment, the table 277 lists a backup database file 281, theblocks that belong to a backup database file 281 (e.g., identified byblock number or by block ID), the backup file ID of the block 283, andthe backup file offset of the block 283. The data agent 240 and/or themedia agent 270 may refer to the table 277 at the time of restore toretrieve particular blocks 283 that correspond to a database object tobe restored, such as a table. The mapping of blocks 283 to correspondinglocations in secondary storage may be referred to as block-levelmapping, and the table 277 may be referred to as the block-level mappingtable.

The media agent 270 can copy a block 233 and create an entry for theblock 283 in the table 277 on a block-by-block basis. For example, themedia agent 270 writes Block 1 of File 1 and creates an entry for Block1, adding the backup file ID of Block 1 and the backup file offset ofBlock 1. Or the media agent 270 creates the entry for Block 1 first,then writes Block 1 to the designated offset.

In certain embodiments, a proxy data agent 240 can be used to performthe functions relating to database backup using block-level mapping. Forinstance, using the data agent 240 on the client 220 to implementdatabase backup using block-level mapping can consume resources of thedatabase application 260 and the data agent 240, e.g., for databaseoperations. Accordingly, a proxy data agent 240 can be used to performdata flow steps 1-3 above. A proxy data agent 240 can reside on aseparate computing device from the client 220 on which the data agent240 resides. For example, the proxy data agent 240 can reside on asecondary storage computing device which hosts the media agent 270.

The block-level mapping of blocks 283 and their locations in secondarystorage can allow restore of a particular database object from thebackup database file 281 without restoring the entire backup databasefile 281 to primary storage. Certain details relating to databaserestore using block-level mapping are explained further with respect toFIG. 2B below.

While described with respect to a backup operation for the purposes ofillustration, the techniques described herein are compatible with othertypes of storage operations, such as, for example, archiving,replication, migration, and the like. A description of these and otherstorage operations compatible with embodiments described herein isprovided above.

FIG. 2B is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of the exemplary information management system200 configured to implement database backup using block-level mapping,according to certain embodiments. The system 200 and correspondingcomponents of FIG. 2B may be similar to or the same as the system 100,200 and similarly named (but not necessarily numbered) components ofFIGS. 1D and 2A.

With further reference to FIG. 2B, the interaction between the variouscomponents of the exemplary information management system will now bedescribed in greater detail with respect to data flow steps indicated bythe numbered arrows.

At data flow step 1, the user selects a backup database file 281 in athree-dimensional (3-D) file system. A backup database file 281 can beexposed as a file system to the user. A three-dimensional file systemcan refer to a file system that provides access to file systems atdifferent points in time. Backup files corresponding to different pointsin time can be exposed as different file systems and/or volumes in the3-D file system. A backup database file 281 can be mounted in the 3-Dfile system. The backup files 281 can be presented to the user in a userinterface (e.g., the storage manager 210 console, etc.). The 3-D filesystem may be provided in a native format. For example, for Windows OS,each backup database file 281 can be accessed via Windows Explorer.

The backup database file 281 may be in the native format of the databaseapplication 260 that created it. And because the database application260 can understand the format of the backup database file 281, thedatabase application 260 can directly read the backup database file 281.

At data flow step 2, the user selects a database object (e.g., a table)to restore. The user can browse a backup database file 281 and select adatabase object for restore. For example, the user can access thehierarchy for the backup database file 281 in Windows Explorer. The usermay expand the backup database file 281, view the database objectsincluded in the backup file 281, and select one of the database objects.Selecting a database object can trigger the restore of the databaseobject from secondary storage. In some embodiments, the database objectto be restored may be selected by a query. In one embodiment, thedatabase object to be restored can be a column(s) in a table. Thedatabase application 260 can refer to the database index 265 tointerpret a backup database file 281. As explained above, the databaseindex 265 can provide the mapping between database objects included in adatabase file and application-level blocks 239 that constitute thedatabase objects. The database application 260 may refer to the databaseindex 265 to display to the user the database objects included in adatabase backup file 281 or to select certain database objects using aquery.

When the user selects the database object or enters a query, thedatabase application 260 may access or read the corresponding databaseobject(s) in the backup database file 281. As discussed in furtherdetail below with respect to data flow step 5, the data agent 240 canintercept such operations and locate the corresponding blocks 283 insecondary storage so that the blocks 283 in the backup database file 281can be forwarded to the database application 260 without restoring theentire backup database file 281. For instance, the data agent 240determines blocks 233 that correspond to the selected database object.The database application 260 operations intercepted by the data agent240 may be in the form of an I/O request for one or moreapplication-level blocks in a database file. The I/O request can includean offset in the database file, include start and end offsets in thedatabase file, etc.

At data flow step 3, the database application 260 accesses the databaseindex 265 to determine the database file 231 offsets for the selecteddatabase object. The database index 265 can include a table 267 thatindicates which application-level blocks 239 belong to a databaseobject. In FIG. 2, the table 267 indicates that Table 1 includesapplication-level blocks 92-156. Using the table 267, the databaseapplication 260 can translate the application-level blocks 239 for theselected database object to one or more offsets within the database file231. In one example, the database application 260 translates thebeginning application-level block 239 to a start offset and the endingapplication-level block 239 to an end offset. For example, if anapplication-level block is 4 kB in size, application-level block 92translates to offset 368 in the database file 231 and application-levelblock 156 translates to offset 624 in the database file 231, where eachincrement of the offset by one corresponds to an increment of 1 k in thedatabase file 231.

At data flow step 4, the database application 260 then issues an I/Orequest to read the translated offsets in the backup database file 281.For instance, the database application 260 issues a request to readoffsets 368-624 in the backup database file 281. In some embodiments,the I/O request includes an identifier for the requested backup databasefile 281 as well as the start offset and the end offset of the portionof the backup database file 281 to read. In other embodiments, the I/Orequest includes the start offset and the number of bytes to read fromthe start offset. Because the backup database file 281 is stored in thesame format (e.g., the native format used by the database application260) as the database file 231, the data agent 240 may use the offsets inthe database file 231 and the backup database file 281 interchangeably;the data agent 240 can use the offsets in the database file 231 toaccess the same portion in the backup database file 281, and vice versa.Similarly, blocks 231 and blocks 283 can be used interchangeably forpurposes of restoring a particular block 231 from secondary storage.

At data flow step 5, the data agent 240 intercepts the I/O request fromthe database application 260 and determines the blocks 283 in the backupdatabase file 281 that include the offsets in the I/O request. Forexample, the data agent 240 obtains the file ID, start offset and/or theend offset from the I/O request and uses this information to determinewhich block(s) 233 in the database file 231 include the start offsetand/or the end offset. For instance, the data agent 240 can divide theoffsets by the block size to calculate which blocks 233 include theoffsets in the I/O request. For instance, the data agent 240 candetermine which blocks to access by evaluating the following equations:

floor(start offset/block size)+1  (Equation 1)

floor(end offset/block size)+1  (Equation 2)

As one illustrative example, if the block size is 256 kB, Block 1 of thedatabase file 231 includes offsets 0-255; Block 2 of the database file231 includes offsets 256-511; Block 3 of the database file 231 includesoffsets 512-767, and so on. In the above example, where the start offsetis 368 and the end offset is 624, the data agent 240 determines that thestarting block is Block 2 by determining that offset 368 falls betweenoffsets corresponding to Block 2 (offsets 256-511), such as byevaluating Equation 1 above (floor[368 kB/256 kB]+1=2]). The data agent240 can further determine that the ending block is Block 3 bydetermining that offset 624 falls between offsets corresponding to Block3 (offsets 512-767), such as by evaluating Equation 2 above (floor[624kB/256 kB]+1). The data agent 240 then requests restore of Blocks 2 and3 from the media agent 270. In some embodiments, the I/O requestincludes the start offset and the number of bytes to read, and the dataagent 240 calculates the end offset from the start offset and the numberof bytes. The data agent 240 may refer to the stored block size (e.g.,stored during backup) in order to determine the blocks 283 to restore.

At data flow step 6, the data agent 240 requests restore of thecorresponding blocks 283. Once the data agent 240 determines whichblocks 233 and corresponding blocks 283 in the backup database file 281should be retrieved, the data agent 240 may send a request to restorethe blocks 283 to the media agent 270. The data agent 240 may send thedatabase file ID for the requested database file 281 along with theblock IDs for the identified blocks 283 to the media agent 270, and themedia agent 270 can extract the blocks 283 from the backup database file281 based on the block IDs. The media agent 270 may refer to the mediaagent index 275 (e.g., the block locations table 277) to determine wherethe blocks 283 are located in the storage device 280. The blocklocations table 277 can indicate the location of the blocks 283 for eachbackup database file 281.

At data flow step 7, the media agent 270 restores the correspondingblocks 283. After the media agent 270 determines which blocks 283correspond to the blocks 233 requested by the data agent 240, the mediaagent 270 can restore the blocks 283 to primary storage, e.g., theinformation store 230. The database application 260 can access theseblocks 283 and present them in the user interface. The user may theninteract with the restored database object (e.g., select a column of atable, etc.). Because the blocks 283 include multiple application-levelblocks, restored blocks 283 may include other application-level blocksthat do not belong to the requested database object. In such case, thedata agent 240 can extract the application-level blocks that correspondto the database object (e.g., the offsets in the I/O request) and passthem on to the database application 260. If the database object selectedfor restore is Table 1, the blocks 283 that correspond to Table 1 can becopied to the information store 230. In one example, Table 1 includesblocks 1, 2, 3, . . . , n, and FIG. 2B shows blocks 1, 2, 3, . . . , nto be restored in dashed lines.

As explained above, a proxy data agent 240 may be used to perform thefunctions relating to database backup using block-level mapping.Similarly, the proxy data agent 240 can be used to perform the functionsrelating to database restore using block-level mapping. Using the dataagent 240 on the client 220 (e.g., production database server) forrestore of database objects can divert resources from regular databaseoperations since the data agent 240 needs to determine which blocksshould be restored for the requested database object. Accordingly, theproxy data agent 240 can be used to perform data flow steps 1-5 above.The proxy data agent 240 can reside on a separate computing device fromthe client 220 or from the computing device on which the data agent 240resides. In one embodiment, the proxy data agent 240 resides on themedia agent 270. Using a proxy data agent 240 can prevent block-levelmapping features from interfering with regular database operations.

In this manner, the system 200 can keep track of blocks 283 and theirlocations in secondary storage, allowing for granular restore of abackup database file 281. The block-level mapping allows the databaseapplication 260 to access a particular block 283 in a backup databasefile 281 without restoring the entire backup database file 281 first.With the block-level mapping, the data agent 240 can intercept a readfrom the database application 260, locate the corresponding block(s) 283for the read from the storage device 280, and restore only the desiredblock(s) 283 to primary storage. Use of block-level mapping can reducethe amount of resources used to restore a backup database file 281 byreducing the amount of storage space, processing, time, etc. involved inrestoring database objects. Moreover, in this way, the databaseapplication 260 can access the backup database file 281 in secondarystorage in the native format of the database application 260. Backup andrestore using block-level mapping can be especially useful when tapesare used to back up data; the offsets in the backup database file 281may not correspond exactly to locations on tape media, and byimplementing block-level mapping, the system 200 can restore data from abackup database file 281 in a more granular manner.

While described with respect to a backup operation for the purposes ofillustration, the techniques described herein are compatible with othertypes of storage operations, such as, for example, archiving,replication, migration, and the like. A description of these and otherstorage operations compatible with embodiments described herein isprovided above.

FIG. 2C is a block diagram illustrative of database application data,block-level mapping, and associated data structures, according tocertain embodiments. Certain details relating to FIG. 2C are furtherexplained with respect to FIGS. 2A and 2B. The database application 260data such as the example database file 231 can be organized by thesource database application 261 into many application-level blocks 239.The database application 260 can include a database index or mapping267, which maintains a mapping of database objects and application-levelblocks 239.

The data agent 240 can divide the database file 231 into multiple blocks233, and each block 233 can include multiple application-level blocks239. The size of a block 233 can be selected to optimize restore of thedatabase objects. For example, the size can be chosen by considering thesize of a typical read by the database application 260. The size of atypical read can vary depending on the database application 260, and thedata agent 240 can select an appropriate block 233 size for differentdatabase applications 260. In certain embodiments, the data agent 240maintains a table to keep track of which application-level blocks 239belong to which block 233. In other embodiments, the data agent 240doesn't keep track of which application-level blocks 239 belong to ablock 233, but instead stores the size of a block 233, e.g., inconfiguration settings. As explained above, the data agent 240 can usethe stored size to determine which blocks 283 should be restored fromthe storage device(s) 280. Generally, the size of a block 233 will belarger than the size of an application-level block 239.

The media agent 270 may maintain a table 277 of blocks 283 in a backupdatabase file 281 and the locations of the blocks 283 in secondarystorage. In one embodiment, the table 277 lists the database backup file281, the blocks 283 included in the database backup file 281, the backupfile ID of the file that includes the blocks 283, and the offset of theblocks 283 within the file. The table 277 can refer to a database backupfile 281 and a block 283 by a number. For instance, the database backupfile has a file number, and a block 283 has a block number. The dataagent 240 can instruct restore of blocks 283 using block numbers.

FIG. 2D shows an illustrative example of a partial block locations table277 as well as a corresponding secondary storage device 280, where theblock size is 256 kB. As shown, the block locations table 277 includesfour columns. The left-most column gives the database file ID/#, and thenext three columns provide corresponding block #, backup file ID/#, andbackup file offset. For instance, the example table 277 indicates thatdatabase file #1 has x blocks and is entirely stored within backup file#1. Moreover, Block #1 of database file #1 begins at a backup fileoffset of 500 MB into backup file #1, and the last block x of thedatabase backup file #1 begins at an offset of 500 MB+(x−1)*256 kB.Thus, first database file #1 ends at an offset of 500 MB+x*256 kB. Thetable 277 also shows that a second database file #2 is also storedcompletely within backup file #1. The second database #2 begins at abackup file offset of 2 gigabytes (2 GB) into backup file #2, and thelast block y of the database file #2 begins at an offset of 2GB+(y−1)*256 kB. Thus, the second database file #2 ends at an offset of2 GB+y*256 kB.

While FIG. 2D only shows two first and second database files 281 a, 281b stored in backup file #1 285, more than two database files can bestored in a single backup file. As shown, additional backup files 2-Nmay reside on the secondary storage device 280. In addition, while notshown in FIG. 2D, one or more additional database files may reside insome or all of the additional backup files 2-N. While the database files281 a, 281 b shown in FIG. 2D reside entirely within backup file #1 285,in other embodiments a single database file may span multiple backupfiles, such as where a first set of blocks 283 reside on a first backupfile, and a second set of blocks 283 reside on a second different backupfile.

An Exemplary System for Implementing Conversion of a Database Object toa Format Different than the Source Database Application

FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of the exemplary information management system300 configured to convert database objects to a database applicationformat that is different than that of the source database applicationused to generate the objects, according to certain embodiments. Asillustrated, the exemplary information management system 300 includes astorage manager 310, a client computing device or client 320, aninformation store or primary storage device 330, a data agent 340, astaging server 350, a database application 360, a media agent 370, and asecondary storage device or storage device 380. The system 300 andcorresponding components of FIG. 3 may be similar to or the same as thesystem 100, 200 and similarly named (but not necessarily numbered)components of FIGS. 1D and 2A-2C.

Moreover, depending on the embodiment, the system 300 of FIG. 3 mayadditionally include any of the other components shown in FIGS. 1D and2A-2C that are not specifically shown in FIG. 3. The system 300 mayinclude one or more of each component. All components of the system 300can be in direct communication with each other or communicate indirectlyvia the client 320, the storage manager 310, the media agent 370, or thelike. In certain embodiments, some of the components in FIG. 3 shown asseparate components can reside on a single computing device, or viceversa.

In some cases, it may be desirable to restore database application to adatabase application of a different type than the source databaseapplication that generated the data and/or to restore the databaseapplication data in a way that enables a different database applicationto access and/or manipulate the restored data. For example, a user maywant to restore an Oracle database or a portion thereof to an SQLServer. There may be various reasons why it would be desirable torestore database data for use by a database application different thanthe source application, such as where there are a limited number oflicenses available for the source application, where reportinguniformity is desirable, for quality assurance (QA) purposes, for thepurpose of migrating the data (e.g., to different database application,cloud, etc.), etc. In many such cases, a user may want to restore only aportion of a database file. For example, only a table or a few tablesmay need to be restored to generate a report. Accordingly, theinformation management system 300 can restore database data from backupsor other secondary copies at a more granular level. For example, theinformation management system 300 can extract a database object from abackup database file and convert the database object to the format of adifferent database application.

With further reference to FIG. 3, the interaction between the variouscomponents of the exemplary information management system will now bedescribed in greater detail with respect to data flow steps indicated bythe numbered arrows. Certain details relating to conversion of adatabase object to a different database application format are explainedabove with respect to FIGS. 2A-2C.

At data flow step 1, the data agent 340 or another component of thesystem 300 requests restore of a database object in a backup databasefile 381 to a different database application 360. The user may browsethrough a list of backup database files 381 (e.g., in the 3-D filesystem) and select a particular backup database file 381. Backupdatabase files 381 may be secondary copies of database files 331 eachrepresenting the database files 331 at different corresponding points intime. The backup database files 381 can be similar to the backupdatabase files 281 described with respect to FIGS. 2A-2C. The user canthen select a database object (e.g., a table) to restore from the backupdatabase file 381. For example, the user may select a database object torestore and the type of target or destination database application 360that the restored data will be used with. In the example of FIG. 3, theuser may select a database object in a backup database file 381 ofDatabase Application 1 and request restore of the database object toDatabase Application 2. The request can be sent from a client 320 onwhich Database Application 1 is installed, and the converted databaseobject can be sent to a client 320 on which Database Application 2 isinstalled. In some embodiments, the restore request may not originatefrom the user, but instead be triggered by the system 300. For example,the system 300 may generate a report and instruct the data agent 340 torestore a particular database object from backup database files 381. Inone embodiment, the system 300 can instruct restore of a database objectthrough the database application 360 that generated the database object,for example, by using an API of the database application 360.

At data flow step 2, the data agent 340 determines the blocks 333 thatcorrespond to the requested database object. Data flow step 2 can besimilar to data flow steps 3-5 of FIG. 2B, and the system 300 can usethe block-level mapping features and the data structures explained inconnection with FIGS. 2A-2C, for example, in order to determine whichblocks 333 correspond to the requested database object. For instance,Database Application 1 accesses the database index 365 (e.g., table 367)to look up the application-level blocks for the requested databaseobject and translates the application-level blocks to offsets in thedatabase file 231. Then, Database Application 1 issues a conversionrequest, which includes the translated offsets. The data agent 340 canintercept the conversion request and determine which blocks 333 in thedatabase file 331 include the offsets in the conversion request. Then,the data agent 340 issues a request to restore blocks 383 correspondingto blocks 333. At data flow step 3, the media agent 370 restores thecorresponding blocks 383 to the staging server 350. The staging server350 can include a cache 355. After the media agent 370 determines whichblocks 383 correspond to the blocks 333 requested by the data agent 340,the media agent 370 can restore the blocks 383 to the cache 355 of thestaging server 350. The system 300 can use the block-level mapping andthe data structures explained in connection with FIGS. 2A-2C in order torestore the blocks 383 that correspond to the requested database object.For example, the media agent 370 can reference the block-level mappingtable 377 to locate the relevant blocks 383 in the storage device 380.

At data flow step 4, the staging server 350 converts the restoreddatabase object to the format of the destination database application360. In the example of FIG. 3, the staging server 350 can convert therestored database object in the cache 355 from the format of DatabaseApplication 1 to Database Application 2. For example, although a varietyof techniques can be used for converting the data, according to oneembodiment the staging server 350 accesses a repository including firstdatabase schema associated with Database Application 1 and seconddatabase schema associated with Database Application 2, and consults thefirst and/or schema in performing the conversion. Then, at data flowstep 5, the staging server 350 can copy the converted database object tothe information store 330 associated with the destination client 320.

In certain embodiments, the staging server 350 does not convert therestored database object, but instead forwards the restored databaseobjects to another computing device for conversion. For example, thecomputing device may have the destination database application 360installed and can convert the forwarded restored database object to theformat of the destination database application 360. In theseembodiments, the staging server 350 serves as a temporary location towhich database objects are restored prior to being forwarded forconversion.

In this manner, block-level mapping can be used to convert a singledatabase object to another database application format. The ability toextract and convert a single database object from a backup file withoutrestoring the entire file can save a significant amount of resources,given the large sizes of many database files. Also, the conversion canbe performed on the database object from a backup database file 381, sothe database production server does not need to be involved inconversion and/or migration of the database object.

Using block-level mapping to convert all database objects of a databaseapplication to another database application format can also be useful.For example, a backup database file 381 can be restored and converted ina pipelined fashion, e.g., on an object-by-object basis, where someobjects are being accessed from the cache 355 and converted by thestaging server 350 in parallel with the restoration of other objects tothe cache 355. For each database object, the blocks for that databaseobject database object can be restored from the backup database file 381into the cache 355, converted to the other database application format,and forwarded to the client 320 and/or the information store 330associated with the other database application 360. In such cases, someof the database objects and corresponding blocks are restored to thecache 355, converted to the desired format, and/or forwarded to theclient 320 before others of database objects and corresponding blockshave been restored to the cache 355. This is in contrast to some otherembodiments where an entire backup database file 381 is restored priorto beginning to convert the data to the destination format, requiringlarge amounts of storage space and resulting in time delays associatedwith restoring the entire database file 381 prior to conversion, sincethe size of a backup database file 381 can be quite large (e.g., on theorder of terabytes (T)). Restoring and converting on an object-by-objector other pipelined basis can significantly reduce the amount of storagespace needed for conversion. Also, the amount of time for conversion issignificantly reduced since the restore and conversion can operate inparallel, where each database object can be converted and forwarded tothe destination database without having to wait for the entire databasefile 381 to be restored.

As explained above, the ability convert database objects to a differentdatabase application format can be useful in various situations. Forinstance, a company may have a limited number of licenses for theproduction database application 360, so generating reports may beperformed using a different database application 360. Only a few tablesfrom the production database application 360 may be needed for thereporting, and the corresponding tables can be extracted from the backupdatabase file 381 and converted. The tables could also be converteddirectly from the information store 330, but doing so will take up someof the resources of the production database application 360. Instead, byconverting the database objects directly from the backup database file381, the system 300 can avoid utilizing resources of the productiondatabase application 360. Converting database objects to a differentdatabase format can also be useful for other situations, such asmigration, QA, etc.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine 400for database backup using block-level mapping. The routine 400 isdescribed with respect to the system 200 of FIG. 2A. However, one ormore of the steps of routine 400 may be implemented by other informationmanagement systems, such as those described in greater detail above withreference to FIGS. 1D and 2B. The routine 400 can be implemented by anyone, or a combination of, a client, a storage manager, a data agent, amedia agent, and the like. Moreover, further details regarding certainaspects of at least some of steps of the routine 400 are described ingreater detail above with reference to FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 2C. Althoughdescribed in relation to backup operations for the purposes ofillustration, the process of FIG. 4 can be compatible with other typesof storage operations, such as, for example, archiving, migration,snapshots, replication operations, and the like.

At block 401, the data agent 240 divides a database file 231 into aplurality of blocks 233. The database application 260 may output thedatabase file 231 for storage in one or more primary storage devices(e.g., the information store 230) as a series of application-levelblocks 239. The database file 231 can include a plurality of databaseobjects. The plurality of blocks 233 may have first granularity largerthan a second granularity of the application-level blocks such that eachof the blocks 233 spans a plurality of the application-level blocks 239.In one embodiment, the size of a block 233 is based on the size of aread operation by the database application 260. For instance, the sizeof a block 233 is a multiple of the size of an application-level block239. In certain embodiments, the data agent 240 resides on a computingdevice that is different from one or more computing devices on which thedatabase application 260 executes, such as a computing device on whichthe media agent 270 resides. In some embodiments, the system 200includes a proxy data agent 240, which executes on a computing devicethat is different from the client computing device 220 on which thedatabase application 260 executes, and the proxy data agent divides thedatabase file 231 into the plurality of blocks 233. The system 200 mayinclude both a data agent 240 on the client computing device 220 and aproxy data agent 240 installed on a different computing device from theclient computing device.

At block 402, the media agent(s) 270 copies the plurality of blocks 233to one or more storage devices 280 to create a secondary copy 281 of thedatabase file 231. Each copied block 283 can have a unique identifier(ID) associated with the block 283. The block ID can be used to restorea particular block 283. For example, the data agent 240 can requestrestore of a particular database object from the secondary copy 281 ofthe database file 231. In one embodiment, the secondary copy 281 of thedatabase file 231 is provided as a file system in a user interface(e.g., GUI), and the database object is accessed through the filesystem.

At block 403, the media agent(s) 270 creates a table 277 that provides amapping between the plurality of blocks 283 and corresponding locationson the one or more storage devices 280. In some embodiments, the table277 is stored in one or more indexes associated with the media agent(s)270 (e.g., the media agent index 275). In certain embodiments, the table277 includes columns relating to at least: the secondary copy 281 of thedatabase file 231, a block 283 in the secondary copy 281 of the databasefile 231, a backup file identifier for a location of the block 283 inthe storage device(s) 280, and a backup file offset for the location ofthe block 283 in the storage device(s) 280, etc.

The routine 400 can include fewer, more, or different blocks than thoseillustrated in FIG. 4 without departing from the spirit and scope of thedescription. Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in theart and others that some or all of the functions described in thisdisclosure may be embodied in software executed by one or moreprocessors of the disclosed components and mobile communication devices.The software may be persistently stored in any type of non-volatileand/or non-transitory storage.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrative of another embodiment of a routine500 for database restore using block-level mapping. The routine 500 isdescribed with respect to the system 200 of FIG. 2B. However, one ormore of the steps of routine 500 may be implemented by other informationmanagement systems, such as those described in greater detail above withreference to FIGS. 1D and 2A. The routine 500 can be implemented by anyone, or a combination of, a client, a storage manager, a data agent, amedia agent, and the like. Moreover, further details regarding certainaspects of at least some of steps of the routine 500 are described ingreater detail above with reference to FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 2C. Althoughdescribed in relation to backup operations for the purposes ofillustration, the process of FIG. 5 can be compatible with other typesof storage operations, such as, for example, archiving, migration,snapshots, replication operations, and the like.

At block 501, the data agent 240 intercepts a request from the databaseapplication 260 to read a portion of the secondary copy 281 of adatabase file. The secondary copy 281 of the database file may resideone or more storage device(s) 280 and may be organized on the storagedevice(s) 280 as a plurality of blocks 283. The portion may correspondto a subset of one or more database objects represented by the databasefile. The request can include one or more database file offsetscorresponding to the requested portion. The data agent 240 may reside ona computing device such as the client computing device 220. In oneembodiment, the data agent 240 resides on the same computing device asthe media agent 270.

In some embodiments, the database file is organized by the databaseapplication 260 as a plurality of application-level blocks, and eachblock 283 includes multiple application-level blocks. The size of ablock 283 may be based on the size of a read operation by the databaseapplication 260. For example, the size of a block 283 can be a multipleof the size of an application-level block.

In certain embodiments, the secondary copy 281 of the database file ispresented as a file system in a user interface, and the request to readthe portion is generated in response to selection of the one or moredatabase objects that correspond to the portion within the userinterface. The secondary copy 281 is browsed using the databaseapplication 260 that generated the database file. The one or moredatabase objects that correspond to the portion may be selected by aquery.

At block 502, the data agent 240 maps the one or more database fileoffsets to a subset of blocks 283 that correspond to the one or morerequested database objects. In some embodiments, the data agent 240 mapsthe one or more database file offsets to the subset of the blocks 283that correspond to the one or more requested database objects at leastin part by dividing the one or more database file offsets by the size ofa block 283.

At block 503, the data agent 240 issues a request for the subset of theblocks 283. Each block 283 may have a unique identifier (ID) associatedwith the block 283. The request can include the unique IDs of at leastsome blocks 283 in the subset of the blocks 283.

In response to the request for the subset of the blocks 283, at block504, the media agent(s) 270 accesses a table 277 that maps the pluralityof blocks 283 to storage locations on the storage device(s) 280. In oneembodiment, the table 277 is stored in one or more indexes associatedwith the media agent(s) 270 (e.g., the media agent index 275). The table277 may include the unique IDs of the plurality of blocks 283.

At block 505, the media agent(s) 270, using the table 277, locates andretrieves the subset of blocks 283 from the storage device(s) 280. Atblock 506, the media agent(s) 270 forwards the retrieved blocks 283 forstorage in primary storage (e.g., to the information store 230). Incertain embodiments, the data agent 240 extracts application-levelblocks corresponding to the requested portion from the retrieved blocksbased on the one or more database file offsets, and forwards theextracted application-level blocks to the database application 260.

The routine 500 can include fewer, more, or different blocks than thoseillustrated in FIG. 5 without departing from the spirit and scope of thedescription. Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in theart and others that some or all of the functions described in thisdisclosure may be embodied in software executed by one or moreprocessors of the disclosed components and mobile communication devices.The software may be persistently stored in any type of non-volatileand/or non-transitory storage.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine 600for conversion of a database object to a different database applicationformat. The routine 600 is described with respect to the system 300 ofFIG. 3. However, one or more of the steps of routine 600 may beimplemented by other information management systems, such as thosedescribed in greater detail above with reference to FIGS. 1D, 2A, and2B. The routine 600 can be implemented by any one, or a combination of,a client, a storage manager, a data agent, a media agent, and the like.Moreover, further details regarding certain aspects of at least some ofsteps of the routine 600 are described in greater detail above withreference to FIGS. 2A, 2B, 2C, and 3. Although described in relation tobackup operations for the purposes of illustration, the process of FIG.6 can be compatible with other types of storage operations, such as, forexample, archiving, migration, snapshots, replication operations, andthe like.

At block 601, the data agent 340 receives a request to access at leastone database object of a plurality of database objects represented by adatabase file generated by a first database application 360. Thedatabase file is organized by the first database application as aplurality of application-level blocks, and each data block includesmultiple application-level blocks. The database file may have beenbacked up to secondary storage, and the accessed database object may bea database object in the secondary copy 381 of the database file. Forexample, the database application 360 presents the secondary copy 381 ofthe database file as a file system in the user interface, and therequest to access the at least one database object is generated inresponse to selection of the at least one database object in the userinterface. The first database application 360 may reside on a computingdevice in primary storage, such as the client computing device 320.

In one embodiment, an index 365 associated with the first databaseapplication 360 provides a mapping between the plurality of databaseobjects and corresponding application-level blocks (e.g., in the table367). The database application 360 generates the request to access theat least one database object by consulting the index 365, and therequest includes one or more offsets in the database file correspondingto the at least one database object.

At block 602, in response to the request, the data agent 340 identifiesa subset of a plurality of data blocks 383 which correspond to thedatabase object. At block 603, the data agent 340 issues a request forthe subset of data blocks 383.

At block 604, the media agent(s) 370 receives the request to retrievethe subset of data blocks 383. At block 605, the media agent(s) 370accesses a stored table 377 that provides a mapping between secondarycopies 383 of the plurality of data blocks and corresponding locationson the storage device(s) 380. The table 377 can be similar to the table277 described with respect to FIGS. 2A-2D. The table 377 can be storedin an index associated with the media agent(s) 370 (e.g., the mediaagent index 375). At block 606, the media agent(s) 370 retrieves thesubset of data blocks 383 from the storage device(s) 380. At block 607,the media agent(s) 370 forwards the retrieved subset of data blocks 383to the staging server 350.

At block 608, the staging server 350 receives the requested data blocks383, where the received data blocks 383 are retrieved from one or morestorage devices 380 in secondary storage that store the secondary copy381 of the database file. In one embodiment, the one or more storagedevices 380 include one or more tapes, and the secondary copy 281 of thedatabase file is stored on the one or more tapes. The staging server 350may have a staging memory, such as a cache 355, for receiving andstoring the requested data blocks prior to their conversion.

At block 609, the staging server 350 converts the received data blocks383 to a format usable by a second database application 360 that isdifferent than the first database application 360. The staging server350 can be in communication with the staging memory and access datablocks 383 directly from the staging memory for performing theconversion. Or in some embodiments, the staging server 350 forwards datablocks 383 from the staging memory to another computing device forperforming the conversion.

In one embodiment, the staging server 350 converts the received datablocks 383 to the format usable by a second database application 360 byextracting application-level blocks included in the received data blockswhich correspond to the database object based on the one or more offsetsindicating the database object and converting the identifiedapplication-level blocks to the format usable by the second databaseapplication 360.

In certain embodiments, the at least one database object includesmultiple database objects, and at least some of the requested datablocks 383 are accessed from the staging memory for conversion beforeothers of the requested data blocks 383 are received and stored by thestaging memory. In this way, the staging server 350 restores andconverts database objects on an object-by-object basis. The restore andconversion of database objects can occur in parallel, reducing theamount of time for conversion. The entire database may be converted tothe format of the second database application 360 on an object-by-objectbasis.

At block 610, the staging server 350 forwards the converted databaseblocks for use by an instance of the second database application 360.The instance of the second database application 360 may be executing ona separate computing device from the first database application 360(e.g., Client 2 in FIG. 3). The second database application 360 canstore the converted database blocks in one or more primary storagedevices (e.g., the information store 330 associated with Client 2).

The routine 600 can include fewer, more, or different blocks than thoseillustrated in FIG. 6 without departing from the spirit and scope of thedescription. Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in theart and others that some or all of the functions described in thisdisclosure may be embodied in software executed by one or moreprocessors of the disclosed components and mobile communication devices.The software may be persistently stored in any type of non-volatileand/or non-transitory storage.

An Exemplary System for Implementing Restore of Database Object inDatabase Archiving Using Blocks

FIG. 7 is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of the exemplary information management system700 configured to implement object-level restore of database data,according to certain embodiments. As illustrated, the exemplaryinformation management system 700 includes a storage manager 710, aclient computing device or client 720, an information store or primarystorage device 730, a data agent 740, an archive database server 750, adatabase application 760, a media agent 770, and a secondary storagedevice 780. The system 700 and corresponding components of FIG. 7 may besimilar to or the same as the system 100, 200, 300 and similarly named(but not necessarily numbered) components of FIGS. 1D, 2A-2C, and 3.

Database data including portions of database files stored in the primarystorage device(s) 730 may be archived from the primary storage device(s)to the one or more secondary storage devices 780 to make more storagespace available in the primary storage device(s) 730. Archiving caninclude pruning select database data from the primary storage device(s)730. In some existing systems, when the user tries to access an objectfrom an archived database file (e.g., a particular table or record), theentire archive file is restored in order to recover the archiveddatabase data the user is trying to access. The information managementsystem 700 according to certain aspects implements object-level databaserestore using blocks, where only a subset of data corresponding to oneor more user-selected database object(s) is restored instead ofrestoring the entire archive file. For example, the informationmanagement system 700 restores a particular database object from anarchive file that is stored across multiple blocks. At the time ofarchiving, the system 700 can store the database data across one or moreblocks and archive to secondary storage on a block-by-block basis. Thiscan allow the information management system 700 to restore only theblock(s) that include the data corresponding to the requested databaseobject(s), instead of restoring the entire archive file. Then, theinformation management system 700 can return data that corresponds tothe database object from the restored block(s) to the databaseapplication. Certain details relating to archiving using blocks areexplained above.

The database application 760 executing on the client computing device720 creates a database file 737, which is stored on a primary storagedevice 730 associated with the client computing device 720. At data flowstep 1, the data agent 740 or the database application 760 creates anarchive file 731 containing a number of database objects to be archivedfrom the primary storage device(s) 730 to the secondary storagedevice(s) 780. The archive file 731 according to certain embodiments isa temporary file for use in the archiving process that is constructedfrom the source database file 737 stored in the primary storagedevice(s) 730. The data agent 740 can flag select portions of thedatabase file for archiving according to an archiving policy and packagethose into the temporary archive file 731 for use in the archiveprocess, as will now be described in further detail. During a subsequentarchiving operation, the data agent 740 associated with the databaseapplication 760 may determine which database objects (e.g., tables) needto be archived (e.g., according to a least recently used or otherpolicy) and also determine relationships between database objects to bearchived and other database objects. For example, the data agent 740 candetermine what other database objects are referenced by the databaseobjects to be archived and flag the referenced database objects forarchiving as well. Similarly, the data agent 740 can determine whatother database objects reference the database objects to be archived andflag the referencing database objects for archiving. In this way, thedata agent 740 can archive database objects and their linked databaseobjects as a unit. The database application 760 data may be stored inthe information store 730. The database application 760 or the dataagent 740 can export the flagged database objects as an archive file731. The archive file 731 may be created locally to the client computingdevice 720, e.g., in the information store 730 associated with theclient computing device 720. While only one archive file 731 is shown,an archive file 731 can be created for each archive operation, and canbe a temporary file that is deleted following the archive operation.Examples of some techniques for archiving database data are found inU.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0025641, titled “System andMethods for Database Archiving,” the entire disclosure of which isincorporated by reference herein.

Archiving may run according to a schedule defined by a storage policy,at user request, based on certain events, etc. The storage manager 710may instruct the data agent 740 to start an archiving operation. Or thedata agent 740 may initiate an archiving operation, e.g., according to aschedule. In some embodiments, the system 700 may allow a user to selectfrom between configuring the system 700 to organize the archive file 731as a set of granular blocks to track archived database data duringarchiving, as a first option, and not using blocks, as a second option.For instance, the use of blocks can have a number of advantagesincluding allowing for restore of object-level data, and users desiringsuch a feature may select the first option. On the other hand, the usermay configure the system 700 not to use blocks in order to reduceoverhead associated with managing and tracking the blocks. A user may belikely to select this option where restoring object-level database datais not a priority, for example.

At data flow step 2, the data agent 740 divides the archive file 731 andallocates the archive file 731 across one or more blocks 733. In oneembodiment, the size of a block 733 is 4 megabytes (MB). In someembodiments, a proxy data agent 740 may perform the functions of thedata agent 740 with respect to database archiving and/or restore usingblocks, for example, in order to reduce the use of resources of theproduction database server. The proxy data agent 740 may reside on adifferent computing device from the production database server, such asthe media agent 770 or the archive database server 750.

In certain embodiments, the database application 760 may export the datato be archived as one or more archive files 731 prior to an archiveoperation. Similarly, the data agent 740 may also divide the archivefiles 731 into one or more blocks 733 prior to an archive operation. Theclient 720, the database application 760, and/or the data agent 740 candetermine the data to be archived and prepare the data for archivingahead of time, e.g., in order to make the archiving process faster. Theclient 720, the database application 760, and/or the data agent 740 mayprepare for archiving in advance, e.g., according to a schedule.

At data flow step 3, the media agent(s) 770 backs up the archive file731 in blocks. The media agent(s) 770 copies the blocks 733 to one ormore secondary storage devices 780 to create a secondary copy 781 of thearchive file 731, including secondary copies 783 of the correspondingblocks 733. To facilitate discussion, the secondary copy 781 of thearchive file 731 may be referred to as archive file 781, and thesecondary copy 783 of a block 733 may also be referred to as block 783.Archive files 781 can be stored on various types of media in secondarystorage, e.g., disk, tape, etc.

For restore, the user may access an archive file 781 in secondarystorage through the three-dimensional (3-D) file system, similar tobackup database files 281, 381 described above. In order to allow accessto an archive file 781 through the 3-D file system, the data agent 740or another component of the system 700 may rename or change the filepathof the exported archive file 731, e.g., prior to dividing into one ormore blocks 733. Certain details relating to restore of archive files781 are explained below, e.g., in connection with FIG. 7A.

FIG. 7A is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of the exemplary information management system700 configured to implement object-level restore of database data,according to certain embodiments. As illustrated, the exemplaryinformation management system 700 includes a storage manager 710, aclient computing device or client 720, an information store or primarystorage device 730, a data agent 740, an archive database server 750, adatabase application 760, a media agent 770, and a secondary storagedevice 780. The system 700 and corresponding components of FIG. 7A maybe similar to or the same as the system 100, 200, 300, 700 and similarlynamed (but not necessarily numbered) components of FIGS. 1D, 2A-2C, 3,and 7.

With further reference to FIG. 7A, the interaction between the variouscomponents of the exemplary information management system will now bedescribed in greater detail with respect to data flow steps indicated bythe numbered arrows. Certain details relating to restore of a databaseobject using blocks are explained above with respect to FIGS. 2A-2C, 3,and 7.

At data flow step 1, the database application 760 requests restore ofarchived database data. For example, the user may try to access archiveddatabase data, and the database application 760 may try to read anarchive file 781 in secondary storage corresponding to the requesteddata. The archive file 781 may have been stored in secondary storage inmultiple blocks at the time of archiving as explained above inconnection with FIG. 7, and the data agent 740 can intercept the readand restore the block(s) of the archive file 781 that corresponds to therequested archived database data.

Since archived database data may be pruned from the production databaseserver, the archived database data may be accessed through an archivedatabase server 750. The archive database server 750 can provide accessto database data that has been recently archived. For example, thearchive database server 750 may store archived database data for themost recent 6 months. The recent archived database data may be stored insecondary storage as well as the archive database server 750. Archiveddatabase data that is not directly available from the archive databaseserver 750 may need to be restored from secondary storage. The user mayconnect to the archive database server 750, e.g., from the client 720,to browse archived database data. The user can directly access thearchived database data that is stored on the archive database server 750itself. The user may also browse and access the archive files 781 insecondary storage through the 3-D file system. The user may accessand/or interact with the archived database data on the archive databaseserver 750 and/or in the secondary storage through a user interface(e.g., database application 760 GUI, etc.). The archive database server750 can also have the database application 760 installed.

Similar to backup database files 281, 381 explained above, archive files781 for different points in time can be exposed as different filesystems and/or volumes in the 3-D file system. For example, an archivefile 781 can be mounted in the 3-D file system. The 3-D file system canbe accessed through the archive database server 750. For example, the3-D file system can run on the media agent 770 and expose the archivefiles 781 to the archive database server 750 using the Network FileSystem (NFS) protocol. The NFS protocol may refer to a distributed filesystem protocol that allows a user on a client computer to access remotestorage and files over a network in a way that is similar to how localstorage and files are accessed. The 3-D file system and/or the mediaagent 770 can retrieve any requested archived database data in thearchive files 781 from secondary storage. The 3-D file system may beprovided in a native format. For example, for Windows OS, each archivefile 781 can be accessed via Windows Explorer. The archive file 781 maybe in the native format of the database application 760 that created it.And because the database application 760 can understand the format ofthe archive file 781, the database application 760 can directly read thearchive file 781.

As explained above, the database application 760 can export the databasedata to be archived in an archive file 731. The archive file 731 can bedivided into one or more blocks and copied to the storage device 780 tocreate the archive file 781. In order to allow access to an archive file781 through the 3-D file system, the data agent 740 or another componentof the system 700 can rename or change the filepath of the exportedarchive file 731, e.g., prior to archiving. For example, an archive file731 may have the filepath “/export/db1/archive/job1/exp.data,” and thedata agent 740 can change the file path to“/3dfs/export/db1/archive/exp.data.” The original filepath of thearchive file 731 may be referred to as the “first filepath.” Thefilepath to be changed to may be referred to as the “second filepath.”The second filepath may be provided by the 3-D file system or the NFSserver. The first filepath can be mapped to the second filepath. The 3-Dfile system and/or the NFS server may run on the media agent 770. Thedatabase application 760 can recognize where the archive file 781 islocated from the second filepath.

At data flow step 2, the data agent 740 determines the block(s) 783 forthe requested database data. Data flow step 2 can be similar to dataflow steps 3-5 of FIG. 2B and data flow step 2 of FIG. 3, and the system700 can use the block-level mapping features and the data structuresexplained in connection with FIGS. 2A-2C and 3, for example, in order todetermine which blocks 733 correspond to the requested database data.

The archive files 781 can be presented to the user in a user interface,and the user can browse an archive file 781 and select a database objectincluded in the archive file 781. Selection of database object cantrigger restore of the database object from the archive file 781. Theuser can also run a query on the archived database data, and the querycan trigger restore of database objects that are included in the resultof the query. The 3-D file system may request the media agent 770 toretrieve the blocks 783 that include the selected database object fromsecondary storage.

As explained above, the database application 760 can have a databaseindex 765 that maps database objects to database blocks. For example,the database index 765 can include one or more tables 767 that indicatewhich database blocks belong to a database object. When a read operationcomes in, the database application 760 can determine which portion ofthe archive file 781 is being accessed (e.g., which database block(s))by referring to the indexing information in the database index 765. Forexample, the database application 760 can determine the offset for theread. The data agent 740 can intercept the read operation and obtain theoffset information from the database application 760. The data agent 740can then determine which block(s) 733 correspond to the offset. Theprocess of identifying the blocks 733 can be generally similar to theprocess described above with respect to FIG. 2B. For instance, theblocks 733 corresponding to requested database objects can be determinedbased on one or more calculations involving the block size (e.g., 256kB) and one or more of a start offset value and an end offset valueintercepted from the database application 760. The calculations can besimilar to the calculations set forth in Equations 1 and 2 above.

At data flow step 3, the data agent 740 requests restore of thedetermined block(s) 783. After determining which block 733 includesdatabase block(s) that correspond to the offset, the data agent 740 canrequest restore of the corresponding block(s) 783 from secondarystorage. Since the read can continue across multiple blocks (e.g., whenreading a table), the data agent 740 can continue restoring thesubsequent block(s) in order to service the read. The media agent 770can have information (e.g., in the media agent index 775) on where theblocks 783 for an archive file 781 are located in secondary storage. Thedata agent 740 can instruct the media agent 770 to restore thedetermined block(s) 783, and the media agent 770 can restore theblock(s) 783 by referring to the information. The information may bestored in a table 777. The table 777 can be similar to or the same asthe table 277, 377 explained in connection with FIGS. 2A-2D and 3.

At data flow step 4, the media agent 770 restores the requested block(s)783. The archive database server 750 can include a cache 755, and themedia agent 770 can retrieve the requested block(s) from the secondarystorage device 780 and forward the requested block(s) to the cache 755,which in turn can forward the requested block(s) to the destinationclient 720. Any existing block(s) in the cache 755 can be removed asdesired, on a least recently used (LRU) or other appropriate basis, forexample, to make space available for newly restored block(s). In oneembodiment, the data agent 740 can be on the same computing device asthe media agent 770. Having the data agent 740 and the media agent 770on the same device can make queries and/or reads faster, for example,since the mapping information between blocks 733 and database blocks canbe accessed more quickly. For example, the mapping information may havebeen created and/or copied to the media agent index 775 at the time ofarchiving, and may be accessible from the media agent index 775.

In this manner, the system 700 can allow access to database objects inan archive file 781 of a database application 760 without having torestore the entire archive file 781. The system 700 can store thearchive file 781 in blocks 783 in secondary storage and map which blocks733 include which database blocks in the archive file 781. The mappinginformation can be used at the time of restore to determine which block733 corresponds to the current read offset and retrieve thecorresponding block 783 from secondary storage.

While described with respect to an archive operation for the purposes ofillustration, the techniques described herein are compatible with othertypes of storage operations, such as, for example, backup, replication,migration, and the like. A description of these and other storageoperations compatible with embodiments described herein is providedabove.

In FIG. 7A, the archive files 781 are exposed to the databaseapplication 760 and the user through the 3-D file system using the NFSprotocol. However, in some cases, the database application 760 may notwant to access data using the NFS protocol (e.g., due to delay in accesstime, etc.).

In such cases, the system 700 can use another technique to allow accessto archived database data using blocks. For example, the system 700 canallocate disk storage for archive files 731 and perform volume-levelbackup of the whole volume (e.g., obtain a snapshot of the volume). Thevolume-level backup files can be stored in secondary storage inrelatively large blocks. The system 700 can then allow the volume-levelbackup files to be mounted locally to the database application 760 aspseudo volumes. When the database application 760 accesses the data in avolume-level backup file, the system 700 can restore the block(s) thatinclude the accessed data to the database archive server 750. FIG. 7Bshows an embodiment which uses block-level data to protect archive files791 in association with volume-level backup.

As illustrated, the exemplary information management system 700 includesa storage manager 710, a client computing device or client 720, aninformation store or primary storage device 730, a data agent 740, anarchive database server 750, a database application 760, a media agent770, a secondary storage device 780, and disk storage 790. Although anytype of storage may be used, the disk storage 790 in some embodiments isa snapshot-capable array of magnetic or solid state memory, such as astorage array capable of creating and managing snapshots. The system 700and corresponding components of FIG. 7B may be similar to or the same asthe system 100, 200, 300, 700 and similarly named (but not necessarilynumbered) components of FIGS. 1D, 2A-2C, 3, 7, and 7A.

With further reference to FIG. 7B, the interaction between the variouscomponents of the exemplary information management system will now bedescribed in greater detail with respect to data flow steps indicated bythe numbered arrows. Certain details relating to restore of a databaseobject using blocks are explained above with respect to FIGS. 2A-2C, 3,and 7A.

At data flow step 1, the database application 760 accesses a pseudovolume for archived database data. The database application 760 canexport data to be archived as an archive file 791. The archive file 791can be stored in disk storage 790 in a volume 795 of a file system. Insome embodiments, the disk storage 790 is associated with a client 720;in other embodiments, the disk storage 790 may be associated with thearchive database server 750. A volume 795 may be organized as aplurality of data units, which can each have the same size and may bereferred to as “volume blocks,” which may be maintained by volumemanagement software or firmware executing on the storage device 790, forexample. For an archive operation, volume-level backup can be performed.The system 700 may obtain a snapshot of the volume 795 in disk storage790. The archive database server 750 may divide the volume-level file795 up into one or more blocks for storage in the secondary storagedevice(s) 780. The individual blocks created by the archive databaseserver 750 may have a common size larger than the volume level blocksize, such that each block includes multiple volume blocks. The size ofa volume can be quite large, and accordingly, the block size for blocksused in volume-level backup of archive files 791 shown in FIG. 7B can bemuch larger than the block size used for the blocks 733 used inassociation with the archive files 731 shown in FIG. 7A. For example,the entire volume may 5 terabytes (TB) in size, and the volume can bedivided into and stored in 200 GB blocks.

In one specific, illustrative example, archive jobs 1 and 2 run atdifferent points in time. For each job, the data agent 740 exports anarchive file 791 that includes the database data to be archived. Thearchive file 791 can be stored and/or copied to disk storage 790.Archive job 1 runs, and the archive file 791 for job 1 is created. Forexample, the archive file 791 for job 1 can be named or have thefilepath “/export/db1/archive/job1/exp.data.” Volume-level backup isperformed by taking a snapshot of the volume 795 a in disk storage 790.For instance, as shown in FIG. 7B, the disk storage device 790 cancreate a volume snapshot 796 a by taking a snapshot or other type ofimage or copy of the volume 795 a. The data agent 740 or anothercomponent of the system 700 may divide the snapshot 796 a (or other typeof copy) for job 1 into multiple blocks 733 for storing on the secondarystorage device(s) 780, facilitating object level restore as will bedescribed further. At a later point in time, archive job 2 runs, and thearchive file 791 for job 2 is created. The archive file 791 for job 2can be named or have the filepath “/export/db1/archive/job2/exp.data.”Volume-level backup is performed by taking a snapshot of the secondvolume 795 b to create a volume-level snapshot 796 b of the secondvolume 795 b. The volume-level backup can be incremental backup andcapture only the changed volume blocks. As shown, the volume-levelsnapshot file 796 b for job 2 can be divided into multiple blocks 783and stored in secondary storage.

The media agent 770 can copy the volume-level snapshot file 796 a forthe first volume 795 a to the secondary storage device(s) 780 to createa secondary copy 787 a of the volume-level snapshot file 796 a. Thesecondary copy 787 a of the volume-level snapshot file 796 a can includesecondary copies 783 of the corresponding blocks 733 of the volume-levelsnapshot file 796 a. To facilitate discussion, the secondary copy 787 aof the volume-level snapshot file 796 a may be referred to asvolume-level backup file 787 a, and the secondary copy 783 of a block733 may be referred to simply as a block 783. As shown, the media agent770 can also copy the volume-level snapshot file 796 b for the secondvolume 795 b to the secondary storage device(s) 780 to create asecondary copy 787 b of the volume level snapshot file 796 b.Volume-level backup files 787 a-787 b can be stored on various types ofmedia in secondary storage, e.g., disk, tape, etc.

In some embodiments, the data agent 740 or another component of thesystem 700 can maintain mapping information between the volume-levelbackup files 787 a-787 b and the constituent blocks 783, for example, ina table or file 777. The table 777 can include information relating towhich blocks belong to which volume-level backup file, which volumeblocks belong to which block, which blocks have been changed since lastbackup (e.g., whether blocks are dirty), etc. For example, the tableincludes columns “volume”, “block”, “backup file ID”, and “backup fileoffset”, where each row generally specifies sufficient information tolocate the block 783 specified in the “block” column on the secondarystorage device(s). In one embodiment, the volume column can indicate avolume 795 in disk storage 790 (e.g., either 795 a or 795 b) and theblock column can indicate one or more blocks 783 associated with thevolume 795 specified in the volume column. Regarding the backup filecolumn, although not shown in FIG. 7B, the volume-level backup copies787 a-787 b may themselves each be stored a particular backup file inthe secondary storage device(s) 780, where each backup file can includemultiple volume-level backup copies 787 a-787 b. And the backup file IDfor a particular row can specify the backup file that the block 783identified in the block column for that row resides in. The backup fileoffset column can specify an offset into the backup file at which theblock 783 can be found. The mapping information may be stored in thedisk storage 790 and/or the media agent index 775, depending on theembodiment. The mapping information can be used at the time of backup,for example, to determine which blocks should be backed up to secondarystorage. By keeping track of which blocks have changed, the system 700can perform incremental backup of the volume 795. Certain detailsrelating to performing incremental backup using blocks are explained inU.S. application Ser. No. 14/598,100, filed on Jan. 15, 2015, entitled“MANAGING STRUCTURED DATA IN A DATA STORAGE SYSTEM” (Attorney DocketNo.: COMMV.236A; Applicant Docket No.: 100.415.US1.120), which isincorporated by reference in its entirety.

The data agent 740 or another component (e.g., a proxy data agent 740)may perform the functions relating to restore of a database object usingblocks, depending on the embodiment. Certain details relating to blocksare explained above, for example, in connection with FIG. 7A.

A volume-level backup file 787 can be mounted to the databaseapplication 760 such that the database application 760 considers thedata to be local. The mounted volume-level backup file 787 may bereferred to as a pseudo volume. A pseudo volume may appear to beaccessible locally, but data of the pseudo volume may not exist and needto be restored from secondary storage as needed. When archived databasedata in a pseudo volume is accessed, the data agent 740 or anothercomponent of the system 700 may restore the block(s) 783 that store thecorresponding volume block(s).

Data flow steps 2, 3, and 4 can be similar to data flow steps 2, 3, and4 of FIG. 7A. At data flow step 2, the data agent 740 determines theblock(s) 783 for the accessed data. For example, the data agent 740 candetermine the offset for the accessed data. As explained above, when aread operation comes in, the database application 760 can determinewhich portion of the volume-level backup file 787 is being accessed. Forexample, the database application 760 can determine the offset for theread. The data agent 740 can intercept the read operation and obtain theoffset information from the database application 760. The data agent 740can then determine which block includes volume block(s) that correspondto the offset. The process of identifying the blocks 733 can begenerally similar to the process described above with respect to FIG.2B. For instance, the blocks 733 corresponding to requested databaseobjects can be determined based on one or more calculations involvingthe block size (e.g., 256 kB) and one or more of a start offset valueand an end offset value intercepted from the database application 760.The calculations can be similar to the calculations set forth inEquations 1 and 2 above.

At data flow step 3, the data agent 740 requests restore of thedetermined block(s) 783. After determining which block includes volumeblock(s) that correspond to the offset, the data agent 740 can requestrestore of the corresponding block 783 from secondary storage. The mediaagent 770 can have information (e.g., in the media agent index 775) onwhere the blocks 783 for 787 a volume are located in secondary storage.The data agent 740 can instruct the media agent 770 to restore thedetermined block(s) 783, and the media agent 770 can restore theblock(s) 783 by referring to the information. The information may bestored in the table 777, as described. For instance, the media agent 770can locate the requested blocks 783 on the storage devices 780 using theinformation provided in the table 777.

At data flow step 4, the media agent 770 restores the requested block(s)783. As explained above, the requested block(s) can be restored to thecache 755.

In this manner, the system 700 can use blocks to archive and restoredatabase data without using the NFS protocol to allow access to thearchived data. A pseudo volume for archived data can be created andlocally mounted to the database application 760. When the databaseapplication 760 accesses a portion of the pseudo volume, correspondingblock(s) can be restored from secondary storage.

While described with respect to an archive operation for the purposes ofillustration, the techniques described herein are compatible with othertypes of storage operations, such as, for example, backup, replication,migration, and the like. A description of these and other storageoperations compatible with embodiments described herein is providedabove.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine 800for restoring a database object. The routine 800 is described withrespect to the system 700 of FIG. 7. However, one or more of the stepsof routine 800 may be implemented by other information managementsystems, such as those described in greater detail above with referenceto FIGS. 1D, 2A, 2B, 3, 7A, and 7B. The routine 800 can be implementedby any one, or a combination of, a client, a storage manager, a dataagent, a media agent, and the like. Moreover, further details regardingcertain aspects of at least some of steps of the routine 800 aredescribed in greater detail above with reference to FIGS. 7A and 7B.Although described in relation to archiving operations for the purposesof illustration, the process of FIG. 8 can be compatible with othertypes of storage operations, such as, for example, backup operations,migration, snapshots, replication operations, and the like.

At block 801, the data agent 240 processes a database file 737 toidentify a subset of data in the database file 737 for archiving. Thedatabase file 737 may reside on one or more primary storage devices(e.g., the information store 730). The database file 737 may begenerated by a database application 740, which may be executing on aclient computing device 720.

At block 802, the data agent 240 extracts the subset of the data fromthe database file 737 and stores in an archive file 731 as a pluralityof blocks 733 having a common size. The archive file 731 may beorganized as one or more database blocks, and a block 733 can includemultiple database blocks. The data agent 740 may instruct the databaseapplication 760 to extract the subset of the data and create the archivefile 731. At block 803, the data agent 740 or the database application760 deletes the subset of the data from the database file 731.

As part of a secondary copy operation in which the archive file 731 iscopied to the storage device(s) 780, at block 804, the media agent(s)770 receives the plurality of blocks 733 over a network connection. Atblock 805, the media agent(s) 770 copies the plurality of blocks 733 tothe storage device(s) 780. At block 806, the media agent(s) 770 createsa table 777 that provides a mapping between the copied plurality ofblocks 783 and corresponding locations in the storage device(s) 780. Thearchive file 731 may be deleted from the primary storage devices (e.g.,the information store 730) subsequent to the creation of the secondarycopy 781 of the archive file 731.

In some embodiments, the data agent 740 intercepts a read operation bythe database application 760 to access one or more database blocks inthe secondary copy 781 of the archive file 731. The database application760 may try to access the secondary copy 781 of the archive file 731subsequent to the creation of the secondary copy 781. The data agent 740determines an offset of the one or more database blocks 783 accessed bythe read operation. The data agent 740 identifies a block 783 thatcorresponds to the offset. The data agent 740 sends a request to themedia agent(s) 770 to restore the identified block 783 from the storagedevice(s) 780. In response to receiving the request to restore theidentified block, the media agent(s) 770 accesses the table 777 todetermine the location of the identified block 783 in the storagedevice(s) 780, and restores the requested block 783 from the storagedevice(s) 780 to a primary storage device(s) (e.g., the informationstore 730).

In certain embodiments, the system 700 includes a database archiveserver 750. The database archive server may be executing on a secondcomputing device that is different from the client computing device 720on which the database application 760 executes. The database archiveserver 750 can include a staging memory (e.g., a cache 755). Thesecondary copy 781 of the archive file 731 can be accessed through theuser interface of the database archive server 750 for the readoperation. The media agent(s) 770 may restore the requested block 283 atleast in part by storing the requested block 783 in the staging memoryof the database archive server 750 and forwarding the stored block inthe staging memory to at least one primary storage device associatedwith the client computing device 720 (e.g., the information store 730).

In one embodiment, the secondary copy 781 of the archive file 731 isprovided as a file system in the user interface of the database archiveserver 750 and the one or more database blocks in the read operation areaccessed through the file system. The secondary copy 781 of the archivefile 731 may be provided as a file system in the user interface of thedatabase archive server 750 using the Network File System (NFS)protocol.

In some embodiments, a Network File System (NFS) server may assign asecond filepath for accessing the secondary copy 781 of the archive file731 using the NFS protocol (e.g., at the time of creating the secondarycopy 781 of the archive file 731). The second filepath may be differentfrom a filepath of the archive file 731. The NFS server may be executingon a media agent(s) 770. In certain embodiments, the data agent 740executes on the same media agent(s) 770 as the NFS server. For example,the proxy data agent 740 runs on the same machine as the NFS server.

The routine 800 can include fewer, more, or different blocks than thoseillustrated in FIG. 8 without departing from the spirit and scope of thedescription. Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in theart and others that some or all of the functions described in thisdisclosure may be embodied in software executed by one or moreprocessors of the disclosed components and mobile communication devices.The software may be persistently stored in any type of non-volatileand/or non-transitory storage.

Terminology

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understoodwithin the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certainembodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certainfeatures, elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is notgenerally intended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are inany way required for one or more embodiments or that one or moreembodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without userinput or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps areincluded or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.

Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, throughout thedescription and the claims, the words “comprise,” “comprising,” and thelike are to be construed in an inclusive sense, as opposed to anexclusive or exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of“including, but not limited to.” As used herein, the terms “connected,”“coupled,” or any variant thereof means any connection or coupling,either direct or indirect, between two or more elements; the coupling orconnection between the elements can be physical, logical, or acombination thereof. Additionally, the words “herein,” “above,” “below,”and words of similar import, when used in this application, refer tothis application as a whole and not to any particular portions of thisapplication. Where the context permits, words in the above DetailedDescription using the singular or plural number may also include theplural or singular number respectively. The word “or” in reference to alist of two or more items, covers all of the following interpretationsof the word: any one of the items in the list, all of the items in thelist, and any combination of the items in the list. Likewise the term“and/or” in reference to a list of two or more items, covers all of thefollowing interpretations of the word: any one of the items in the list,all of the items in the list, and any combination of the items in thelist.

Depending on the embodiment, certain operations, acts, events, orfunctions of any of the algorithms described herein can be performed ina different sequence, can be added, merged, or left out altogether(e.g., not all are necessary for the practice of the algorithms).Moreover, in certain embodiments, operations, acts, functions, or eventscan be performed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing,interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processor cores or onother parallel architectures, rather than sequentially.

Systems and modules described herein may comprise software, firmware,hardware, or any combination(s) of software, firmware, or hardwaresuitable for the purposes described herein. Software and other modulesmay reside and execute on servers, workstations, personal computers,computerized tablets, PDAs, and other computing devices suitable for thepurposes described herein. Software and other modules may be accessiblevia local memory, via a network, via a browser, or via other meanssuitable for the purposes described herein. Data structures describedherein may comprise computer files, variables, programming arrays,programming structures, or any electronic information storage schemes ormethods, or any combinations thereof, suitable for the purposesdescribed herein. User interface elements described herein may compriseelements from graphical user interfaces, interactive voice response,command line interfaces, and other suitable interfaces.

Further, the processing of the various components of the illustratedsystems can be distributed across multiple machines, networks, and othercomputing resources. In addition, two or more components of a system canbe combined into fewer components. Various components of the illustratedsystems can be implemented in one or more virtual machines, rather thanin dedicated computer hardware systems and/or computing devices.Likewise, the data repositories shown can represent physical and/orlogical data storage, including, for example, storage area networks orother distributed storage systems. Moreover, in some embodiments theconnections between the components shown represent possible paths ofdata flow, rather than actual connections between hardware. While someexamples of possible connections are shown, any of the subset of thecomponents shown can communicate with any other subset of components invarious implementations.

Embodiments are also described above with reference to flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) andcomputer program products. Each block of the flow chart illustrationsand/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams, may be implemented by computerprogram instructions. Such instructions may be provided to a processorof a general purpose computer, special purpose computer,specially-equipped computer (e.g., comprising a high-performancedatabase server, a graphics subsystem, etc.) or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions,which execute via the processor(s) of the computer or other programmabledata processing apparatus, create means for implementing the actsspecified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in anon-transitory computer-readable memory that can direct a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to operate in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the acts specified in the flow chart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computing device or other programmable data processingapparatus to cause a series of operations to be performed on thecomputing device or other programmable apparatus to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementingthe acts specified in the flow chart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

Any patents and applications and other references noted above, includingany that may be listed in accompanying filing papers, are incorporatedherein by reference. Aspects of the invention can be modified, ifnecessary, to employ the systems, functions, and concepts of the variousreferences described above to provide yet further implementations of theinvention.

These and other changes can be made to the invention in light of theabove Detailed Description. While the above description describescertain examples of the invention, and describes the best modecontemplated, no matter how detailed the above appears in text, theinvention can be practiced in many ways. Details of the system may varyconsiderably in its specific implementation, while still beingencompassed by the invention disclosed herein. As noted above,particular terminology used when describing certain features or aspectsof the invention should not be taken to imply that the terminology isbeing redefined herein to be restricted to any specific characteristics,features, or aspects of the invention with which that terminology isassociated. In general, the terms used in the following claims shouldnot be construed to limit the invention to the specific examplesdisclosed in the specification, unless the above Detailed Descriptionsection explicitly defines such terms. Accordingly, the actual scope ofthe invention encompasses not only the disclosed examples, but also allequivalent ways of practicing or implementing the invention under theclaims.

To reduce the number of claims, certain aspects of the invention arepresented below in certain claim forms, but the applicant contemplatesthe various aspects of the invention in any number of claim forms. Forexample, while only one aspect of the invention is recited as ameans-plus-function claim under 35 U.S.C sec. 112(f) (AIA), otheraspects may likewise be embodied as a means-plus-function claim, or inother forms, such as being embodied in a computer-readable medium. Anyclaims intended to be treated under 35 U.S.C. §112(f) will begin withthe words “means for”, but use of the term “for” in any other context isnot intended to invoke treatment under 35 U.S.C. §112(f). Accordingly,the applicant reserves the right to pursue additional claims afterfiling this application, in either this application or in a continuingapplication.

1. (canceled)
 2. A data storage system for protecting database files,the system comprising: in response to instructions to retrieve one ormore requested application-level blocks of a database file from asecondary copy: one or more secondary storage controller computerscomprising computer hardware configured to: access a table that providesa mapping between the plurality of requested application-level blocksand corresponding plurality of blocks stored in a secondary copy, eachof the corresponding plurality of blocks having a first granularitylarger than a second granularity of the application-level blocks suchthat each of the corresponding plurality of blocks in the secondary copyspans a plurality of the application-level blocks, the plurality ofcorresponding blocks further stored a native format of the database filein the secondary copy; retrieve the corresponding plurality of blocksfrom the secondary copy; and a client computing device comprising: atleast one hardware processor; a data agent executing on the processorand configured to divide the corresponding plurality of blocks retrievedfrom the secondary copy into the one or more requested application-levelblocks; and a database application executing on the processor, thedatabase in communication with the data agent, the database applicationconfigured to receive the requested application-level blocks from thedata agent.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the size of a block of thecorresponding plurality of blocks is based on the size of a readoperation by the database application.
 4. The system of claim 3, whereinthe size of a block of the corresponding plurality of blocks is amultiple of the size of an application-level block.
 5. The system ofclaim 2, wherein the table is stored in one or more indexes associatedwith the one or more secondary storage controller computers.
 6. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein each block of the corresponding plurality ofblocks has a unique identifier (ID).
 7. The system of claim 2, whereinthe table includes columns relating to at least: the secondary copy ofthe database file, a block of the corresponding plurality of blocks inthe secondary copy of the database file, a backup file identifier for alocation of the block in the secondary storage subsystem, and a backupfile offset for the location of the block in the secondary storagesubsystem.
 8. The system of claim 2, wherein the data agent is furtherconfigured to request restore of a database object from the secondarycopy of the database file.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein thesecondary copy of the database file is provided as a file system in auser interface, and the database object is accessed through the filesystem.
 10. The system of claim 2, wherein the system further comprisesa second data agent executing on a computing device that is differentfrom the client computing device and the second data agent is configuredto divide the corresponding plurality of blocks retrieved from thesecondary copy into the one or more requested application-level blocks.11. The system of claim 10, wherein the table is stored separately fromthe plurality of corresponding blocks.
 12. A method of protectingdatabase files, the method comprising: in response to instructions toretrieve one or more requested application-level blocks of a databasefile from a secondary copy: with one or more secondary storagecontroller computers comprising computer hardware: accessing a tablethat provides a mapping between the plurality of requestedapplication-level blocks and corresponding plurality of blocks stored ina secondary copy, each of the corresponding plurality of blocks having afirst granularity larger than a second granularity of theapplication-level blocks such that each of the corresponding pluralityof blocks in the secondary copy spans a plurality of theapplication-level blocks, the plurality of corresponding blocks furtherstored a native format of the database file in the secondary copy;retrieving the corresponding plurality of blocks from the secondarycopy; and with a client computing device comprising computer hardware:dividing the corresponding plurality of blocks retrieved from thesecondary copy into the one or more requested application-level blocks;and receiving at a database application executing on the processor, therequested application-level blocks.
 13. The method of claim 12, whereinthe size of a block of the corresponding plurality of blocks is based onthe size of a read operation by the database application.
 14. The methodof claim 13, wherein the size of a block of the corresponding pluralityof blocks is a multiple of the size of an application-level block. 15.The method of claim 12, wherein the table is stored in one or moreindexes associated with the one or more secondary storage controllercomputers.
 16. The method of claim 12, wherein each copied block of theplurality of first blocks has a unique identifier (ID).
 17. The methodof claim 12, wherein the table includes columns relating to at least:the secondary copy of the database file, a block of the correspondingplurality of blocks in the secondary copy of the database file, a backupfile identifier for a location of the block in the secondary storagesubsystem, and a backup file offset for the location of the block in thesecondary storage subsystem.
 18. The method of claim 12, furthercomprising, with the data agent, requesting restore of a database objectfrom the secondary copy of the database file.
 19. The method of claim18, wherein the secondary copy of the database file is provided as afile system in a user interface, and the database object is accessedthrough the file system.
 20. The method of claim 12, wherein dividingthe corresponding plurality of blocks retrieved from the secondary copyinto the one or more requested application-level blocks is performed bya remotely located pseudo data agent.